A group of hackers tied to Iran has been attempting to break into accounts associated with the 2020 reelection campaign of President Trump, researchers have discovered.
Researchers from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center said they first observed activity from a group called Phosphorus in August, the company reported in a recent
blog post.
Later, news outlet
Reuters identified those accounts as belonging to members of the Trump campaign, noting that “Trump’s official campaign website is the only one of the remaining major contenders’ sites that is linked to Microsoft’s cloud email service.”
Specifically, during a 30-day period between August and September, Microsoft researchers observed Phosphorus making made more than 2,700 attempts to identify consumer email accounts belonging to specific Microsoft customers. The hackers then tried to attack 241 of those accounts, according to Microsoft.
“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,” the company said.
Phosphorus was successful in compromising four accounts not related to the campaign or current or former U.S. officials, Microsoft said. The company worked with those affected to secure the accounts, according to the post.
threatpost.com
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