 "Meta takes action against Iranian hackers targeting US elections, blocks their WhatsApp accounts – Firstpost")
Meta attributed some suspicious activity to APT42, also known as UNC788 and Mint Sandstorm, a group the FBI had previously linked to a phishing campaign targeting members of both the Trump and Harris camps.
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Meta has taken action against Iranian hackers by blocking WhatsApp accounts involved in a suspected social engineering campaign. The company has traced this activity to APT42, also known as UNC788 and Mint Sandstorm, a group the FBI previously linked to a phishing campaign targeting members of both the Trump and Harris camps.
This suspicious activity on WhatsApp appeared to target individuals in Israel, Palestine, Iran, the United States and the United Kingdom, with a particular focus on political and diplomatic representatives of the two US presidential candidates.
The hackers posed as technical support representatives from companies such as AOL, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, but Meta did not provide details on how they attempted to compromise their victims’ accounts.
Some of the targets reported the suspicious activity, and Meta launched an investigation. The company believes the hackers’ efforts were unsuccessful as it found no evidence that the targets’ accounts were compromised.
Nevertheless, Meta reported the activities to law enforcement and shared relevant information with both presidential campaigns.
Earlier this month, Google released a report revealing that APT42 had been targeting prominent users in Israel and the US for years. While many of APT42’s attempts were unsuccessful, the group managed to infiltrate the account of Roger Stone, a close political confidant of Trump.
The hackers used Stone’s account to send phishing emails to his contacts, further highlighting the threat posed by this group.
Meta’s actions are evidence of technology companies’ ongoing efforts to preserve the integrity of political processes in the face of sophisticated cyber threats.
