The tech giant says it disrupted a phishing operation by a hacking unit linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Google claims that Iranian hackers tried to target both the Republican and Democratic presidential election campaigns earlier this summer. The company says the attack was part of a larger email phishing operation, which involved sending deceptive messages to targets in a bid to steal personal information or hack their accounts.
The report by the tech giant, which was published on Wednesday, comes after former US President Donald Trump’s campaign recently announced that its internal emails and documents had been stolen “by foreign sources.” It claimed Tehran was responsible for the hack and was trying to interfere with the upcoming US presidential election. Iran has denied the allegations.
In its report, Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) stated that it had disrupted a “small but steady” phishing operation conducted by APT42, which it described as an Iranian government-backed threat actor and hacking group with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
According to Google, APT42 “consistently targets high-profile users in Israel and the US, including current and former government officials, political campaigns, diplomats, individuals who work at think tanks, as well as NGOs and academic institutions that contribute to foreign policy conversations.”
Google says it blocked “numerous” attempts by the group to log into the personal email accounts of roughly a dozen individuals affiliated with US President Joe Biden, his VP Kamala Harris, and former President Trump in May and June. These included current and former government officials and individuals associated with the respective campaigns.
In the past six months, the US and Israel reportedly accounted for some 60% of the group’s known geographic targeting, the TAG report said, stating that APT42’s activities “demonstrate the group’s aggressive, multi-pronged effort to quickly alter its operation focus in support of Iran’s political and military priorities.”
Read more
