Microsoft says group linked to Iran’s government tried hack of U.S. presidential campaign

WASHINGTON — An Iranian-government linked group of computer hackers tried to infiltrate email accounts of a U.S. presidential campaign, current and former U.S. officials and journalists, among others, Microsoft Corp. said.

Four accounts, though none connected to the unnamed presidential campaign or the current and former U.S. government officials, were “compromised” by the group, called Phosphorus, Tom Burt, Microsoft’s vice president for customer security & trust, said Friday in a blog post.

The attacks took place “in a 30-day period between August and September,” Burt said in the post. Phosphorous made “more than 2,700 attempts to identify consumer email accounts belonging to specific Microsoft customers and then attack 241 of those accounts,” he said. “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.”

Microsoft’s announcement comes as the presidential campaign heats up amid concerns the 2020 election faces the same dangers as the Russian hacking and social media effort in 2016.

“While the attacks we’re disclosing today were not technically sophisticated, they attempted to use a significant amount of personal information both to identify the accounts belonging to their intended targets and in a few cases to attempt attacks,” Burt said in the post. “This effort suggests Phosphorous is highly motivated and willing to invest significant time and resources engaging in research and other means of information gathering.”

Spokesmen for the campaigns of Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders declined to comment. Other major presidential campaigns couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

The Phosphorous group has previously targeted dissidents, activists, the defense industry, journalists and government employees in the U.S. and Middle East, according to Microsoft. The company announced in March it had taken successful court action against Phosphorous and seized 99 websites from the hackers, preventing them from using the pages for cyber operations.

In July, Microsoft announced it had countered almost 10,000 hacks globally stemming from state-sponsored attacks in the previous 12 months. The effort included hundreds of attacks on democracy-focused organizations, particularly non-governmental organizations and think tanks, which were mostly based in the U.S., the company said.

Later that month, the Senate Intelligence Committee reported that Russia engaged in “extensive” efforts to manipulate elections systems throughout the U.S. from 2014 through “at least 2017.” And a Trump administration official said in June that Russia, China and Iran are already trying to manipulate U.S. public opinion before 2020.

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(Dina Bass, Tyler Pager, Sahil Kapur and Emma Kinery contributed to this report.)

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