Iranian hackers use WhatsApp to target US presidential elections, Meta reveals

Meta

Days after Microsoft and Google flagged concerns about Iran-backed hackers targeting US presidential elections, Meta has also issued as similar warning. “This effort appeared to have focused on political and diplomatic officials, and other public figures, including some associated with administrations of President Biden and former President Trump,” said Meta in a blog post.

Meta’s investigation also pointed out at the same hacking group —APT42 (also known as UNC788 and Mint Sandstorm) — involved in hacking political, diplomatic and other officials. “These accounts posed as technical support for AOL, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Some of the people targeted by APT42 reported these suspicious messages to WhatsApp using our in-app reporting tools,” said Meta.

The company also said that it had shared all the relevant information with law enforcement officials. “Out of an abundance of caution and 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.

Meanwhile, almost 10 days back, Google had suggested that APT42 uses a variety of different tactics as part of their email phishing campaigns — including hosting malware, phishing pages, and malicious redirects. “They generally try to abuse services like Google (i.e. Sites, Drive, Gmail, and others), Dropbox, OneDrive and others for these purposes,” said Google.

According to Google, there had been unsuccessful attempts from APT42 to compromise the personal accounts of individuals affiliated with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, including current and former government officials and individuals associated with the campaigns.