Google Says Iran-Linked Hackers Targeted WHO

Google reported on Wednesday that it continues to see attacks launched by the Iran-linked threat group named Charming Kitten against medical and healthcare professionals, including employees of the World Health Organization (WHO).


Charming Kitten, which experts believe is sponsored by the Iranian government, is also tracked as APT35, Ajax Security Team, NewsBeef, Newscaster, and Phosphorus. It has been active since at least 2011, mainly targeting individuals and organizations in the Middle East, United States and United Kingdom.


The latest report from Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) on state-sponsored hacking and disinformation campaigns says the company has seen attacks launched by Charming Kitten against the WHO and others.


The attacks launched by Iranian hackers against WHO staff were first reported by Reuters in early April. The news agency said the attacks started on March 2 and their goal was to help the attackers obtain account passwords.


The international healthcare organization said at the time that, as far as it knew, none of the hacking attempts were successful. Iran denied the accusations.


Google has once again warned that government-backed hackers are exploiting the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in their attacks. Last month, the company said its security team had seen more than a dozen groups using COVID-19 lures for their phishing and malware attacks. In a separate report released in April, Google said it had been seeing millions of coronavirus-related malicious emails every day.


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