Iran Hackers Try to Break into US Election Accounts, Microsoft Says

A giant computer company, Microsoft, announced that hackers from Iran were trying to break into various important people’s online accounts. These people are involved in the upcoming US presidential election. This activity happened just a few months before the election, in June, which was to take place in November.

What Did the Hackers Do?

1. They sent one tricky email to an upper-level person in a presidential campaign. An email like this is called “spear-phishing.” It tricks the person who gets the email into clicking it, opening it, and giving up their password.

2. They also broke into the account of a county worker by trying a lot of common passwords repeatedly until they got in.

Why Are They Doing This?

According to Microsoft, the hackers are interested in learning about the US election. They’re looking for data regarding political campaigns and regions that have close results, which are known as “swing states.”

Who Do the Hackers Work for?

Microsoft says they believe that these hackers have been contracted by the Iranian government. More specifically, they believe that these hackers are part of a group run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

What Does Iran Say?

Iran says it’s not trying to interfere with the US election. They say their computer skills are only for defense, not for attacking others.

Websites Spreading False Information

Microsoft also found groups in Iran that are involved in generating false news websites. According to them, such sites utilize computer programs to republish stories from real news sites. According to Microsoft, what they are doing is nothing but an effort to influence the political shares of the voters towards both sides of American politics, for some websites are liberal, while some are conservative.

What is being Done in Response to this?

Microsoft informed the targeted people of the attacks. This was also shared with others as a heads-up to the general public on what was occurring. US intelligence officials are watching for these kinds of activities to protect the election.

Attention should therefore be paid to the Web, particularly to emails seeking to get passwords or personal information. In case you have any doubt about an email or a site, don’t click on anything or reveal information without contacting somebody you trust, or an authority exposed on such matters.