The WhatsApp platform was used by Iranian hackers to target public figures in the United States, Britain and the Middle East, the tech giant Meta reported Friday. File Photo by Hayoung Jeon/EPA-EFE
Aug. 24 (UPI) — Meta says it has disrupted a plot by Iranian hackers using its WhatsApp messaging platform to target public figures, including some with ties to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
The U.S. tech giant, which also is the parent company of Facebook, said in Friday a blog post it detected malicious activity linked to the Iranian group APT42, also known as UNC788 and Mint Sandstorm, which is known for its “persistent adversarial campaigns using basic phishing tactics across the internet to steal credentials to people’s online accounts.”
The company said the “small cluster” of hackers used WhatsApp to target public figures in Israel, Palestine, Iran, the United States and Britain, including “some associated with administrations of President Biden and former President Trump.”
APT42, which is thought to have close links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has previously targeted Saudi military figures, dissidents and human rights activists from Israel and Iran, politicians in the United States and Iran-focused academics, activists and journalists around the world.
The group was blamed by the Trump campaign for illegally obtaining internal documents earlier this month and is believed by U.S. officials to be attempting to influence the 2024 presidential election.
Meta said the hackers operated by sending messages to WhatsApp users posing as technical support for AOL, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. The suspicious messages were reported to Meta, which responded by investigating them and linking the activity to the same hacking group responsible for similar attempts reported earlier by Microsoft and Google.
No personal accounts were compromised in the latest phishing scheme and the hacks were apparently unsuccessful thanks to “the vigilance” of users, the company said.
But it added that “out of an abundance of caution and given the heightened threat environment ahead of the U.S. election, we also shared information about this malicious activity with law enforcement and with the presidential campaigns to encourage them to stay cautious against potential adversarial targeting.”
