As America hurtles toward another presidential election, the threat of Russian hacking, meddling, and general deleterious behavior has occupied the minds of US government officials and average voters alike. But on Friday, Microsoft sounded an alarm that serves as a timely reminder that Russia doesn't have a monopoly on election hacking. In an aggressive new email phishing push, the company says, Iranian hackers targeted a US presidential campaign.
Microsoft wouldn't say which candidate's operations the Iranian assailants hit, but Reuters reported on Friday that the target was President Donald Trump's reelection campaign, which is known to use Outlook as its email provider. Microsoft noted that the attacks on the campaign did not succeed. In a 30-day stretch during August and September, Microsoft saw hackers launch 2,700 attempts to identify specific target email accounts, including those belonging to current and former US government officials, journalists, and Iranians living outside Iran. They ultimately attacked 241 of those, and successfully compromised four—none of which were associated with the US presidential candidate or government officials. Microsoft has notified the victims.
Microsoft calls the Iran-linked hacker group Phosphorous, and has tracked its activity in the past. The group is also known as APT 35 and Charming Kitten. In March, unsealed court documents revealed that Microsoft had iranian hackers targeted presidential candidate
