Meta said Friday that an Iranian hacking group was targeting the WhatsApp accounts of people associated with the administrations of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
In a report, Meta said it had blocked a “small group” of WhatsApp accounts posing as technical support for technology companies such as Microsoft, Google and Yahoo. Meta said it had linked the activity to the Iranian group APT42, which is known for targeting political officials and other public figures.
“This malign activity originated in Iran and targeted individuals in Israel, Palestine, Iran, the United States, and the United Kingdom,” Meta said. “These efforts appear to have targeted political and diplomatic officials and other public figures, including some associated with the administrations of President Biden and former President Trump.”
However, Meta added that there was no evidence that accounts had been compromised.
The report comes less than a week after U.S. intelligence agencies released a joint statement saying Iran was behind the hacking of Trump’s campaign on August 10. The hacking resulted in several media outlets receiving private campaign materials from an anonymous source.
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The FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said they were “convinced” that the Iranians had made further attempts to target both the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns and that Iran’s efforts to influence this year’s election had become “increasingly aggressive.”
Meta said it had shared information about this new activity with law enforcement and the presidential campaign due to the “heightened threat environment” ahead of the November election.
