Microsoft Researchers Report Iran Hackers Targeting US Officials Before Election

Microsoft researchers said on Friday that Iran government-tied hackers tried breaking into the account of a "high ranking official" on the U.S. presidential campaign in June, weeks after breaching the account of a county-level U.S. official. From a report: The breaches were part of Iranian groups' increasing attempts to influence the U.S. presidential election in November, the researchers said in a report that did not provide any further detail on the "official" in question.

The report follows recent statements by senior U.S. Intelligence officials that they'd seen Iran ramp up use of clandestine social media accounts with the aim to use them to try to sow political discord in the United States. Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York told Reuters in a statement that its cyber capabilities were "defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces" and that it had no plans to launch cyber attacks.

what's the point?

[diffract]

It's not like any of the presidential candidates are friendly towards Iran. I call BS on this "research"

Re: what's the point?

[OrangeTide]

Maybe they hope one candidate would destabilize the US or bring it into a period of isolationism.

Re:

[ndsurvivor]

If there was personal profit it it certainly one candidate would destabilize the US. I noticed a place that I post has a lot more anti-US propaganda than usual. They are having some problems now that Harris Walz showed up on the scene.

Re:

[ravenshrike]

What problems could the cackling idiot who can't even have a 5 minute off the cuff conversation with friendly reporters and the stolen valor moron who set up a COVID snitch line possibly give anyone?

Re:

[smooth wombat]

Maybe they hope one candidate would destabilize the US or bring it into a period of isolationism.

There is already such a candidate and he's been bought by Russia to do these very things. Iran needs to find another angle.

Re:

[oh_my_080980980]

I didn't know Harris was in Russia's pockerts...

Re:

[Ogive17]

It may not be about trying to influence for a specific candidate. We've seen quite clearly the past couple of decades that many Americans are easily manipulated. Since Trump became a national player, the US is more fractured than its been since the Civil War. Hell, the GOP has completely abandoned policy and seems like the only goal is to throw shit at their opponents. (I should start taking pictures of the mailings I'm getting nearly every day)

All Iran has to do is get a few details, spin it in such

Re:

[Surak_Prime]

Or... it might BE about trying to influence for a specific candidate, just not directly for their own benefit. You don't always get to draw a straight line - it could be that if they succeed in influencing the election in a way that benefits an ally (like, say, getting the US to withdraw support for Ukraine and maybe some former Soviet bloc Eastern European nations) then they can count on more support from that ally, in turn.

Re:

[ndsurvivor]

Iran doesn't have to make guns in order to kill Americans, all they have to do is convince stupid people that vaccines will kill them, but diseases won't.

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

You beat me to this but I agree totally, the division and constant outrage news cycle machine are what this is really about. I am sure places like Russia and Iran have their preferences but they I am sure have tactics for either scenrio to keep things going and the American media machine plays their part as well.

I am always hesistant to watch for falling down the Russia paid-actor hole but as an example there are a certain set of Russian talking points in regards to the Ukraine conflict and the way they ph

Re:

[TigerPlish]

It's not like any of the presidential candidates are friendly towards Iran

Bullshit.

Harris picked Walz because Shapiro's way too Jewish for The Party.

Today's Democrat party is solidly pro-Palestine, pro-Iran, and Anti-Israel.

Yes, Pro-Iran. So was Obama. So are his disciples.

Anyone who won't see this has either an agenda to push, or their heads down in the sand.

And to all reading this: If you're a Jew and a Democrat, you better start examining your own loyalties to the party. Do your own homework. Find out who paid for all those matching green and white tents in all the school

Re:

[oh_my_080980980]

Pro-Palestine?? Biden is supporting a fucking genocide in Gaza. What crack are you smoking.

A senator for Egypt/Iran

[flyingfsck]

There was a senator for Egypt. Iran probably wants similar.

So it's likely Harris and Biden

[rsilvergun]

While not friendly are looking to get Iran in the hands of moderates and modernize the country into one that we can work with peacefully. This is as opposed to the Trump administration that was openly trying to start a war with them (Right around the time their poll numbers were collapsing due to COVID and a war would have been politically advantageous but I'm sure that's just a coincidence)

Iran is currently being run by the closest thing they have to moderates who do seem to want to modernize the count

Re:

[Moryath]

You're joking right? A few reasons a hostile state actor like Iran might want to get access to the email of officials in another country:

- Information gathering that could be used for other operations, up to and including identifying possible targets (not just the politician but also employees they correspond with) for coercion or other attacks.

- Impersonation attempts, learning "how the politician writes" and then sending fabricated or spoofed communications out.

- Identifying political actors whom Ir

Microsoft... researchers

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

That screams serious right there.

Lazy Journalism, 2024 Edition

[NaCh0]

Find 2016 hacker story, Search/Replace Russia for Iran, click publish.

And the same people who found the 2016 stories to be credible will do the same for these Iran hacked the election stories.

You're going to need to do more than cite "unnamed sources" to gain your credibility back.

Such an insightful observation from Microsoft.

[mmell]

I suppose next they'll make some really zany predictions, like that hurricanes will hit Florida some time before the election.

On the bright side, I don't see anything saying Microsoft expects the same kind of hacking activity from Russia or China. That's good news, right?

I wonder who has an incentive to spread lies about

[ndsurvivor]

Who has an incentive to say global change is a hoax? That electric cars catch on fire more than oil/gas based cars? That alternative energy sources are intermittent and no good?

Payback

[PinkyGigglebrain]

The USA can't really complain. They interfered in Iran and caused the overthrow of Iran's Democratically elected government [npr.org] in 1953. Which led directly to the eventual rise of Iran's current non-secular government and many of the problems that Middle East region currently experiences.

I'm sure we'll soon be hearing about the other usual suspects, China, Russia, and N. Korea trying to mess with the USA's elections as well.

Re:Payback

[ravenshrike]

The fact that you think the ayatollahs wouldn't have also overthrown the commies is funny as hell.

Re:

[rsilvergun]

Honestly if we had just let them be a proper democracy despite them not letting us have all their oil things would be a lot better all around. Gas would have been more expensive though and we would have had to start thinking about public transportation and nobody under 50 wants to think about that...

Re:

[sarren1901]

Public transportation is great if you live in a high density area. That's true for a lot of major cities and a simple majority of citizens. So sure, public transportation up and down the east and west coast would be fine, since that's where most of our population is at.

Small town America doesn't have the density to make public transportation worth it.

Also, as someone that lives in a major city (San Diego), I have to say that our public transportation is very undesirable. Here's just the problems I can think

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

Absofuckin-lutely, we created a nation primed to eventually hate us.

I would add to this by saying the withdrawal from the nuclear agreement in 2018 was probably the worst foreign policy mistake since Iraq-2. Just needless escalation because you're just guaranteeing they pursue a bomb again and once they have it, then what do we do? Now we have to go to war? Like zero forethought put into that one.

Re:

[ndsurvivor]

The thought was: whatever good the black man did, Rich White Men must undo.

Re:Payback

[nevermindme]

That 82% of irans current population was born after the shaw is insanely funny whenever someone goes off about it. As compaired to its neighbors its urban population was quite western. It is like people who complained about how much effect the US civil war had on economics of the south in 1965, while they were building Saturn 5s in Huntsville and microelectronics in texas. The world has moved on, perhaps IRAN can rejoin the rest of us in the 23rd century.

Iran's entire theocratic state

[rsilvergun]

Exists because the United States installed in unpopular dictator over there and when we did that the only place a revolution could fly under the radar was in the mosques because there was a religious prohibition against sending in the dictator's goons.

Once you have a dictatorship it is damn hard to get rid of it. That's why so many Americans are so worried about this upcoming election in November. It doesn't take much to give away democracy but good luck getting it back

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

As compaired to its neighbors its urban population was quite western.

And then what happened?

Re:

[c]

I'm sure we'll soon be hearing about the other usual suspects, China, Russia, and N. Korea trying to mess with the USA's elections as well.

When you put it like that, it's almost like you're saying messing with another country is just a bunch of state-based intelligence organizations doing their job rather than a hot news take.

try to sow political discord in the United States

[oh_my_080980980]

Like the United States needs people outside the country to sow discord. The United States does a pretty good job of that itself.

Microsoft has turned into a fluffer...

War

[colonslash]

This is the latest propaganda, there used to be lots of these stories about Russia to prepare us for war with them, too. Iran has to be painted as the bad guys so people in the US will be willing to pay for Israel expanding their war.

Re:

[colonslash]

My guess: this is a false flag from the Mossad posing as Iranians.