Microsoft: ‘Iranian hackers are trying to influence U.S. presidential elections’

Iranian hackers are increasing their efforts to manipulate the course and the outcome of the United States presidential elections, which are held in November of this year.

Hacking groups connected with the Iranian government are trying to rig the upcoming elections in two ways. First, they’ve launched influence campaigns on trending election-related topics with one goal in mind: to stir up controversy and convince voters to vote for the other party.

Second, the hacking groups are trying to gather as much information on political campaigns from volunteers and politicians.

One Iranian hacking group has been launching covert news sites targeting U.S. voters on both the right and left end of the political spectrum. One of them is calling former president Donald Trump an “opioid-pilled elephant in the MAGA China shop” and a “raving mad litigiosaur”.

Meanwhile, another group with close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is sending spear phishing emails to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor. This happened last June.

A third Iranian hacking group was able to hack an account of a county-level government employee in a swing state. “The group’s operations have focused on strategic intelligence collection particularly in satellite, defense, and health sectors with some targeting of US government organizations, often in swing states,” Microsoft says in its latest Threat Intelligence Report.

Lastly, a separate group is trying to influence the presidential elections by using force, intimidation and provocative violence against politicians and interest groups. Its goal is to wreak havoc, undermine authorities and sow doubt about the integrity of the elections.

According to the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, the attackers use artificial intelligence (AI) to shape the narrative and deceive voters, and thus manipulate the outcome of the elections. Therefore, the Redmond-based tech company is warning voters, candidates, political parties and government institutions to be aware of the influence campaigns launched by Iranian hackers.

Recently, CISA and the FBI reassured eligible voters that DDoS attacks could rattle election-related functions, like the reporting of the election results, but not the democratic process itself.

“With election day less than hundred days away, it is important to help put into context some of the incidents the American public may see during the election cycle that, while potentially causing some minor disruptions, will not fundamentally impact the security or integrity of the democratic process. DDoS attacks are one example of a tactic that we have seen used against election infrastructure in the past and will likely see again in the future, but they will NOT affect the security or integrity of the actual election,” CISA Senior Advisor Cait Conley said in a statement.