Microsoft’s report reveals Iran’s efforts to influence the US presidential election / Article

A Microsoft report published last Friday says that hackers and bots linked to Iran are actively campaigning against both US presidential candidates – Democratic US Vice President Kamal Harris and former Republican US President Donald Trump.

According to the report’s authors, hackers are trying to cause social disorder in society, causing chaos and disrupting the US political system before the November elections. As an example of the involvement of bots or automated social media accounts in cyber influence activities, the “Sefid Food” group is mentioned, which became particularly active in March of this year.

According to the report, the group uses bots posing as representatives of social and political activist groups with the aim of undermining trust in the government and raising doubts about the integrity of the elections.

The activities of this group can manifest as intimidation, collection and publication of personal information on the Internet, and incitement of violence against politically important people and other representatives of social groups. The report also mentions Mint Sandstorm, an organization linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps military intelligence unit, which “sent a phishing email to a senior presidential campaign official using a hacked account by a former senior adviser” in June this year.

Although the report does not name the official or which official worked for the presidential candidate’s campaign, it is likely that he is a representative of Trump’s staff. This can be seen with the announcement from the associates of the former US president that hackers gained access to documents within the Trump election campaign.

The newspaper “The Washington Post” said that Trump’s staff believes that the hackers are connected to Iran. One of the first to report on the leak was Politico, which began receiving emails from an anonymous account containing internal Trump staff documents.

Benham Ben Taleblu, an expert at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), believes that while hackers linked to Iran are targeting the two US presidential candidates,

The investigation of Trump’s campaign computers and the additional information received by the media may reveal that the Iranian regime has more claims against the former US president.

“Trump killed the regime’s top terrorist, Qassem Soleimani. It is a huge psychological blow from which the regime has not yet recovered. President Trump broke taboos in Washington and ended a decade of debate by designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. even Canada has done And for many other reasons related to regional security, not to mention the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, the regime does not want someone who has put the most weight back in the House White,” Taleblu said.

Taleblu also said that the Iranian regime took Trump’s words of support for Iranian protesters who took to the streets of Iran after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in a morality police station with great displeasure.

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