Ai bot
Meta announced on Friday that it had detected an ongoing hacking campaign aimed at the WhatsApp accounts of US officials from both the Biden and Trump administrations. The company identified the perpetrators as the same Iranian hacker group that recently compromised the Trump campaign.
According to Meta’s blog post, the hacking attempts involved a small number of accounts posing as technical support for various online services, including AOL, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.The company blocked these accounts after users flagged them as suspicious, and there was no evidence to suggest that the targeted WhatsApp accounts had been successfully compromised.
The hacking group responsible for these attempts, known as APT42, is believed to be connected to an intelligence division within Iran’s military. This group is known for installing surveillance software on the mobile devices of its targets, allowing them to record calls, steal text messages, and secretly activate cameras and microphones.
Meta linked APT42’s activities to the recent efforts to breach US presidential campaigns, as reported by Microsoft and Google earlier this month, in the lead-up to the November US presidential election. The company’s blog post refrained from naming the targeted individuals, stating only that the hackers “appeared to have focused on political and diplomatic officials, business and other public figures, including some associated with administrations of President Biden and former President Trump.”
The targeted individuals were located in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Iran, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
According to the NBC news, both the US government and Google confirmed that a cyberespionage group linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have tried to target the presidential campaigns of both parties. The hacking group was successful in breaching former President Trump’s campaign while Harris campaign remained unaffected.
According to Meta’s blog post, the hacking attempts involved a small number of accounts posing as technical support for various online services, including AOL, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.The company blocked these accounts after users flagged them as suspicious, and there was no evidence to suggest that the targeted WhatsApp accounts had been successfully compromised.
The hacking group responsible for these attempts, known as APT42, is believed to be connected to an intelligence division within Iran’s military. This group is known for installing surveillance software on the mobile devices of its targets, allowing them to record calls, steal text messages, and secretly activate cameras and microphones.
Meta linked APT42’s activities to the recent efforts to breach US presidential campaigns, as reported by Microsoft and Google earlier this month, in the lead-up to the November US presidential election. The company’s blog post refrained from naming the targeted individuals, stating only that the hackers “appeared to have focused on political and diplomatic officials, business and other public figures, including some associated with administrations of President Biden and former President Trump.”
The targeted individuals were located in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Iran, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
According to the NBC news, both the US government and Google confirmed that a cyberespionage group linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have tried to target the presidential campaigns of both parties. The hacking group was successful in breaching former President Trump’s campaign while Harris campaign remained unaffected.
