August 10, 2024
NEW YORK — Iran is stepping up its online activities that appear to be aimed at influencing U. S. elections, in one case a presidential crusade with an email phishing attack, Microsoft said Friday.
Iranian actors have also spent recent months creating news sites and posing as activists, laying the groundwork to fuel the department and potentially influence the American electorate this fall, especially in key states, the tech giant found.
The findings of Microsoft’s latest risk report show how Iran, which actively participated in the recent US elections, is evolving its tactics in preparation for other elections that may have global implications. The report goes beyond anything U. S. intelligence officials have revealed and offers explicit examples of the Iranian teams and the moves they have made so far. Iran’s UN project has denied plans to interfere or launch cyberattacks in the US presidential election.
The report does not specify Iran’s intentions, other than to wreak havoc in the United States. U. S. officials have warned in the past that Iran is specifically opposed to former President Donald Trump. Officials have also expressed fear about Tehran’s efforts to seek retaliation after a 2020 attack on an Iranian general ordered through Trump. This week, the Justice Department unsealed criminal charges against a Pakistani man with ties to Iran who allegedly hatched assassination plots against several officials. potentially adding Trump.
The report also shows how Russia and China are exploiting American political polarization to convey their own divisive messages in an election year.
Microsoft’s report identifies four examples of recent Iranian activity that the company hopes to develop in the run-up to the November elections.
First, in June, an organization connected to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards targeted a senior official of the U. S. presidential crusade with a phishing email, a form of cyberattack used to gather sensitive information, according to the report, which does not identify which crusade was being targeted. The organization concealed the origin of the email by sending it from the hacked email account of a senior Shapeer adviser, Microsoft said.
A few days later, the Iranian organization tried to log into an account belonging to a former presidential candidate, but was unsuccessful, according to Microsoft’s report. The company informed those affected.
For example, an Iranian organization created websites posing as United States-based news sites aimed at voters on opposite sides of the political spectrum, according to the report.
A fake news story aimed at a left-wing audience insults Trump as a “madman” and suggests he uses drugs, according to the report. Other news aimed at appealing to Republican readers focuses on LGBTQ issues and gender-affirming surgery.
A third example, cited via Microsoft, is Iranian teams posing as U. S. activists, thus laying the groundwork for influence operations in the run-up to the election.
Finally, some other Iranian organization compromised an account maintained through a government worker in a swing state in May, according to the report. It is unclear whether this cyberattack was related to election interference efforts.
Iran’s draft to the U. N. emailed The Associated Press in a statement: “Iran has been the victim of offensive cyber operations targeting its infrastructure, application centers and industries. Iran’s cyber functions are defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces. Iran has neither the goal nor the goal is to release cyberattacks. The United States presidential election is an internal factor in which Iran does not interfere. “
Microsoft’s report says that as Iran increases its cyber influence, Russia-connected actors have also directed their influence campaigns at the U. S. election, while Chinese Communist Party-connected actors have benefited from pro-Palestinian education protests and other existing events. United States in an attempt to inflame political tensions in the United States.
Microsoft said it continues to monitor how foreign enemies use generative AI technology. These increasingly reasonable and easily accessible equipment can generate realistic fake images, photographs and videos in seconds, leading to considerations among some experts that they could be used simply to mislead the electorate. this election cycle.
While many countries have experimented with AI in their influencer operations, the company said, those efforts haven’t had much effect so far.
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