The same Iranian hacking group believed to have targeted both the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns tried to go after the WhatsApp accounts of staffers in the administrations of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Meta Platforms said Friday.
Meta said it discovered the network of hackers, who posed as tech support agents for companies including AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, after individuals who received the suspicious WhatsApp messages reported them. Meta’s investigators linked the activity to the same network blamed for the hacking incident reported by Trump’s campaign.
The FBI this week said a hack by Iran of the Trump campaign and an attempted breach of the Biden-Harris campaign was part of a broader Iranian effort to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.
A statement Friday from Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, said that the hackers had tried to target the WhatsApp accounts of individuals in the Middle East, the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as political and diplomatic officials — including unidentified officials associated with the Trump and Biden administrations. A “small cluster” of accounts was blocked by Meta, the company said.
“We have not seen evidence of the targeted WhatsApp accounts being compromised, but out of an abundance of caution, we’re sharing our findings publicly, in addition to sharing information with law enforcement and our industry peers,” Meta said in a statement.
Meta said Friday it had warned US presidential campaigns to be wary after it discovered an Iran-linked hacking attempt using the WhatsApp messaging service. The announcement is the latest from a tech giant of hacking threats ahead of the November election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former
president Donald Trump, after Google and Microsoft earlier uncovered similar attempts attributed to Iran. WhatsApp accounts linked to an Iranian “threat actor” sent messages pretending to be technical support for AOL, Google, Yahoo or Microsoft, according to Meta. “This malicious activity originated in Iran and attempted to target individuals in Israel, Palestine, Iran, the United States and the UK,” Meta said in a post.
“This effort appeared to have focused on political and diplomatic officials, and other public figures, including some associated with administrations of
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.” Accounts involved in what appeared to be “social engineering” — duping people into providing access to networks or vital data — were blocked, according to Meta. An investigation linked the attempts to the same hacking group responsible for similar attacks aimed at political, military, diplomatic and other officials reported by Microsoft and Google, Meta said. “Given the heightened threat environment ahead of the US election, we also shared information about this malicious activity with law enforcement and with the presidential campaigns to encourage them to stay cautious against potential adversarial targeting,” Meta said.
