An Iranian hacking group, suspected of attempting to compromise both Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns, also tried to hack WhatsApp accounts of staff members from the administrations of US President Joe Biden and ex-president Donald Trump, according to Meta Platforms. Meta discovered these hackers, who impersonated tech support staff from AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, after suspicious WhatsApp messages were reported.
The activity was tracked back to the same network implicated in a hacking incident reported by the Trump campaign. Earlier this week, the FBI declared that a hack into Trump’s campaign and an attempted breach into the Biden-Harris campaign by Iran was part of a wider Iranian scheme to meddle in the American presidential elections.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, issued a statement on Friday revealing the hackers tried to attack WhatsApp accounts of individuals in the Middle East, US, and UK, along with political and diplomatic officials – some of which were connected to the Trump and Biden administrations. A small group of accounts were shutdown by Meta in response. Although Meta found no evidence of any compromised WhatsApp accounts, precautions have led them to publicly declare their findings and share them with law enforcement and industry colleagues.
Earlier this month, Google’s cybersecurity division linked an Iranian group, associated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, to attempted breaches into the personal email accounts of roughly a dozen people associated with Biden and Trump since May. This report builds on Microsoft’s previous findings, which exposed a suspected Iranian cyber incursion into this year’s presidential election.
US intelligence officers believe Iran’s sweeping cyberattacks and spreading of disinformation have multiple objectives: to sow confusion and division amongst voters, to destabilise faith in US democracy, to chip away at support for Israel, and to counter potential candidates that they perceive will heighten strain between the US and Iran.
Iran swore retribution against Trump’s administration for terminating a nuclear agreement with Iran, reinstating sanctions and green-lighting the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. According to Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, in July, Iran’s regime secretly supported American protests against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza. Haines also claimed that groups affiliated with Iran impersonated online activists to rally campus protests and supplied financial backing to certain protest groups.