Illustrative: A cybersecurity expert stands in front of a map of Iran as he speaks to journalists about the techniques of Iranian hacking, September 20, 2017, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
On October 4th, Microsoft announced that it has discovered a threat group it calls Phosphorus which is allegedly targeting the US 2020 Presidential Elections.
In a surprise twist, it’s not Russian, but according to the company it originates from Iran and has ties to the Iranian government.
The information on Phosphorus’ activity was collected in a 30-day period between August and September 2019.
The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) observed Phosphorus making more than 2,700 attempts to identify consumer email accounts belonging to specific Microsoft customers and then attack 241 of those accounts.
“The targeted accounts are associated with a U.S. presidential campaign, current and former U.S. government officials, journalists covering global politics and prominent Iranians living outside Iran. Four accounts were compromised as a result of these attempts; these four accounts were not associated with the U.S. presidential campaign or current and former U.S. government officials. Microsoft has notified the customers related to these investigations and threats and has worked as requested with those whose accounts were compromised to secure them.”
Essentially, the group allegedly only compromised accounts that had nothing to do with the elections.
This information was shared for two reasons:
- “First, it is important that we all – governments and private sector – are increasingly transparent about nation-state attacks and efforts to disrupt democratic processes.”
- “Second, while we have processes to notify customers about nation state activity and have AccountGuard to monitor accounts of campaigns and other associated organizations related to election processes in democracies around the world, publishing this information should help others be more vigilant and take steps to protect themselves.”
Notably, the alleged attacks were quite unsophisticated, according to Microsoft the group simply researched their targets or used other means to overcome password reset functions of their accounts.
“While the attacks we’re disclosing today were not technically sophisticated, they attempted to use a significant amount of personal information both to identify the accounts belonging to their intended targets and in a few cases to attempt attacks,” Tom Burt, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of customer security and trust said in the blog post. “It is important that we all—governments and private sector—are increasingly transparent about nation-state attacks and efforts to disrupt democratic processes.”
Finally, Microsoft advertised its AccountGuard system, saying that it is part of the Defending Democracy Program. Any person or entity that is a part of a political campaign, a political party committee or an NGO or think tank working on issues related to democracy is eligible to take part.
Iran allegedly increased its malign activity online starting from October 2017, according to cybersecurity intelligence firm Treadstone 71. It all goes back to the “success” of the “Russian election interference” campaign leading up to the 2016 Presidential elections in the US.
Despite there being no evidence of any such campaign (Russian in 2016, or Iranian in 2020).
“Due to the success of the Russians in the 2016 US election, their model is being emulated across the globe,” says Jeff Bardin, chief intelligence officer of the cybersecurity intelligence firm Treadstone 71, which monitors Iranian hacking activity. “In terms of who Iran might target in the US, you would have to ask yourself what candidate or candidates would best suit Iranian needs as a president of the United States. And the interesting thing with that is that Iran’s effort would likely be counter to the efforts of Russian cyber-operations and those of other countries. So what you end up having is the potential for numerous massive attempts to manipulate the American voter that may turn to absolute noise and contradictory data.”
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MS can’t figure out how to keep windoze from being hacked but they know IR is going to hack the 2020 elections. Amazing!
why would anyone hack an election in a military dictatorship w no functioning democracy w election laws only found in dictatorships like azerbijian?
Why does Vault 7 come to mind? Iran getting the blame this time and I wonder how much will be spent on the investigation, headed by Mueller?
MICROSOFT is the one who has hacked everyone using windows. Microsoft software products have multiple ‘Trojan’ backdoor’s built right into them intentionally. If Microsoft stopped putting so many back doors into their products then 80% of the hacks in Microsoft products would not even be taking place.
Based on the extremely simplistic formula of “accuse your adversary of whatever bad you are doing”, the most logical conclusion is the US and co. are trying their best to meddle in the next 2 elections in Iran for parliament and assembly of experts which will be held simultaneously in less than 5 months.
They already started since a few months ago using their outlets to insinuate a large part of people won’t vote to “de-legitimize the regime”. Just like they did in every single elections we had in the last 4 decades with considerably more turnover of voters compared to their own countries. And in this elections we’ll clean our parliament from ineffective MPs who proved they are more interested in sleeping, fiddling with their phones and making financial deals than actually representing their voters. It will be yet another highly participated election so their next best move will be to doubt the results and say it was not a free and transparent election, just like what they did after every single election we had!
Why does Southfront insist on quoting known criminal liars? Whose side are they on?
Oh just like how the Russians hacked the 2016 elections? What a load bovine fecal matter. More like Israel’s cyber operations unit 8200 is hacking them spoofing their identities to make it look like it’s an Iranian hack attempt.
Microsoft is now israel, and someone is using Vault7.
honestly i wish they would hack the elections, and make someone like ron paul president lol
They should be glad that the Iranians are trying to hack the US elections, they want to get rid of Trump so a Democrat will enter the White House and reinstate the nuclear deal. And considering how loony left and batshit insane the Democratic candidates are they’re going to need the help.
Iranians, yup, the Wakeedoodles, in any form, like Mircoscam, the new field of blame game throwers, “of course” its Iranians, right, I even came from an site, witch hade the curtesy to blame the Iraqi protest killings, thur Iranian backed snipers, yeah, whats next, huh. It takes me, I did even check it out, 1 hour to down load programs from the net, where I can create everything, from DDOs attacks to crawl into others systems, like they have ruined On-line war games, hackers everywhere, makes it meaningless to play modern war cames on even Playstation, and it much worse on PC, and can also hide mu IPthru re-routing it thru other nations, and that isnt even a problem, its just so easy that its bloody jaw dropping and yet they whine about aleged hackers from Iran when I can make an DDOs attack look like it came from NK. God have mercy they are idiots and anyone whom belives their drivel is even dumber, do you idiots understand (I dont talk to you SF; its for the sheeps)
The wankeedoodles, is becoming rapidly more idiotic, their propaganda so lame it hurts, and the only place on this earth its acutally swollowed whole is in the banana republic it self, where 99% cant find Africa on an map and wanted to bomb Sweden because of an ASSRAP eh…. rapper proved to be an violent little f…… whined about been arrested and Trumpstein the Lame jumped on it because of Blacks back home.
Hurmf, there are some basic fundamentals I must clear out, shitheads, first and formost, I never, and I mean never ever, trust anything, that comes fro any Wankeedoodle site, it simply dont matter, right/left I dont care, the problem is that its writen/shown by an Moronikan, that, is where I draw the line, NASA is to me, worse than NYT/Washington compost, to BreitFartlingas, BellingCrauts to AJones, they are Moronikans and they dont care about the rest of the world because to this scammers, the only nation on this earth that matters is their own or ISISrael, NASA have no credibility what so ever, I stopped reading/watching anything they claim, writes or shows us, decades ago, they are in the line of other jaw dropping shitholes like History/Dicovery channels, you have to be practically and by all means brain dead, to even consdier them to be even remotely close to anything that is about Facts or Truths.
NASA is right now been used by AGWs raving lunatics, and shows us things witch isnt even close to facts, its prodjections, theorys or even worse, assumptions, witch is nothing but scamming an odience whom is even dumber, and sorry, for the AGW pimpers, I simply dont bother to debate with religious quackers, because you are brain dead enough to show us NASA nonsense, and waisting time on this is nothing but an mental suicide, watching paint dry is much more enlightening.
Hackers, well, to be frank, whom have the control, the wankeedoodles, whom have created systems with wide open barn doors into our CUPs, the wankees, whom have made programs witch they can by ease, collect everything, any wankeedoodle electronic device, the reason for attacking Huawei, and the even dumber whining about social credit, well, huh, just write something about Holohoax, yeah, in Germany you loose everything and go to jail, smoke an joint and they ruing your life and take away your children in countrys like Norway and you wounder why we never have an open debate, in this times where they force us to be eh….. official, even I aint that stupid, not because its an problem, but the MSM runs our countrys, nothing can do anything about that, Norway is totally controlled by the MSM, and they whine about China, hell, I bet China is an light year ahead of our country when it comes to openess, and to prove that, look to Norwegian child protecting aganecy, an org above the law. If want to know what an totalitarian nation looks like, camuflaged as an progresive one witch Norway never was ( we where, upto Gro Harlem Burntland the welfare swindler took over, along with countrys whom created the New Labour; aka the Blair ritch prodject, etc then the downfall began and we have slided downwards since) and certanly not now, look to Strasbourg Human right court, SHRC, about our Police and Child protecting agencys, I bet Norway beats everybody els to pulp when it comes to how much shit there is, and yet the stupid Norse whines about China. WHom have bombed more, China or Norway the last 50 years. Whom is fighting wars for the Banana republic, and in how many countrys, do you even know. yeah, the land of Nobel pissprice. I agree with K. Hamsun, if you want to talk to idiots, come to Norway.
You cant fix stupid, Moronikans are terminaly bonkers, and the freak show about impeachement of Trumpstein & Co, its just TV show, nothing have changed, and nothing will change. Dunka, dunka.
peace