Hackers associated with the Iranian government researched and observed election-related websites in different US states in a possible effort to uncover vulnerabilities that could be used to influence the presidential election, Microsoft said in a report released on Wednesday.
Officials from several federal agencies have been closely watching Iranian activity, a U.S. official told CNN .
The search for websites related to the elections that took place in April was only recently discovered by Microsoft analysts. Hackers also “conducted reconnaissance of major US media outlets” in May, according to Microsoft.
U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran sought to generate discord during the 2024 elections, in part through hacking activities targeting former President Donald Trump’s campaign and in part by encouraging protests against U.S. policy toward Israel.
Microsoft analysts say they believe the Iranian hacking group “will increase its activity as the election approaches, given the group’s operational tempo and history of election interference.”
This is a sign of recent efforts by several Iranian, Russian and Chinese groups to influence or monitor the US election in the final stretch of the presidential campaign.
There is no evidence that the Iranians’ reconnaissance and probing – which typically involves looking for vulnerabilities in websites – turned into attempts to hack those sites, they told CNN sources familiar with the investigation. The activity is not a threat to voting integrity, but it has several protections and checks.
Given this, the concern of US officials and private sector analysts is that this could be yet another foreign-backed effort to amplify Americans’ suspicions about the vote. Hackers can leak publicly available voter registration data, for example, to try to convince people they have access to more sensitive election systems.
Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations denied the allegations in a statement.
“Bereft of any credibility and legitimacy, these allegations are fundamentally unfounded and completely inadmissible. The Islamic Republic of Iran is not involved in the internal turmoil or electoral controversies of the United States,” he said.
“The continued perpetuation of such baseless allegations will only serve to undermine their credibility.”
This news comes a day after US intelligence agencies released an assessment accusing Russian agents of creating and distributing viral audio content on right.
U.S. intelligence officials are also concerned that Russia and Iran will use disinformation to try to foment violence during the days and weeks between Election Day and the certification of votes.
In September, a Russian group moved from Telegram to X, where its manipulated videos attacking Harris gained more traction, according to Microsoft.
One such video used AI to falsely portray Harris as making light of one of Trump’s assassination attempts and received tens of thousands of views on X, according to the report.
Microsoft analysts call the group of hackers that searched election-related websites the Cotton Sandstorm and believe it to be run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The hackers have not yet launched an influence operation targeting the 2024 election, agreement with Microsoft, but its track record is a concern for US authorities.
The same Iranian group posed as the far-right group Proud Boys to attempt to intimidate voters in the 2020 election. In 2020, Iranian hackers also probed election-related websites in several states and, in one case, accessed registration data of voters as part of an attempt to influence and undermine the US presidential election.
Another IRGC-backed group hacked documents held by Trump’s presidential campaign and leaked them to the media.
China has not mounted a concerted effort to influence the presidential election, but has targeted at least 10 congressional, state or local elections through covert social media campaigns, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.
Microsoft’s new report also shows evidence of Chinese agents seeking to aggressively harm Senate and House candidates with posts on X.
“I agree with the assessment that we should expect more from Iran, even if it is as unfortunate and ineffective as their efforts in 2020,” Chris Krebs, who was head of the Federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency during the 2020 election, told CNN.
“We continue to see — whether with the Iranians, the Russians or the Chinese — that information operations is more of a nuisance than a game-changer,” Krebs said. “But they’re cheap, scalable, and there aren’t many consequences.”
American voters, Krebs said, “should anticipate a noisy information environment in the coming months and not get swept up in the chaos.”
This content was originally published in Microsoft reports Iranian hacker activity on American election websites on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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