Google on Wednesday said that a group of hackers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard tried to sabotage the email accounts of a dozen people associated with Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
The Google intelligence team has flagged that hackers are actively targeting current as well as former government officials and people working for the election campaigns of Trump and Harris, the new Democratic candidate for the US presidential election.
Prior to this, Microsoft also reported on Friday that hackers from Iran are meddling with the US presidential election. Google's report stated that its threat researchers identified and disrupted a "consistent and persistent" pattern of Iranian attackers employing email credential phishing, a type of cyberattack where the perpetrator poses as a reliable sender to persuade an email recipient to divulge their login credentials. John Hultquist, chief analyst for the company's threat intelligence division, mentioned that the company sends suspected targets of these attacks a Gmail notification cautioning them that a state-sponsored attacker may be attempting to steal their password.
The report indicated that Google witnessed the group infiltrating the personal Gmail account of a prominent political consultant. Google notified the FBI about the incident in July. Microsoft's report from the previous Friday conveyed comparable information, highlighting that the email account of a former senior adviser to a presidential campaign had been breached and weaponised to send a phishing email to a high-ranking campaign official.
On Monday, the FBI also confirmed that they are investigating this case. The US intelligence has warned that there are continuous efforts from both Iran and Russia, the two major adversaries of the US, to influence the presidential election using cyber attacks.
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