Iran hackers target US officials to influence election, Microsoft says

Iran’s mission to the UN told Reuters its cyber capabilities were ‘defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces’ and that it had no plans to launch cyber-attacks. Photograph: Andrew Brookes/Getty Images/Image Source

Microsoft researchers said on Friday that Iran government-tied hackers tried breaking into the account of a “high-ranking official” on the US presidential campaign in June, weeks after breaching the account of a county-level US official.

The breaches were part of Iranian groups’ increasing attempts to influence the US presidential election in November, the researchers said in a report that did not provide any further detail on the apparent official in question.