The American Company Microsoft says that Russia, China, and Iran have recently targeted parties, political consultants, and people linked to both the Biden and Trump campaigns ahead of US Elections. Microsoft also says that Russian hackers target the US election again. Hackers with ties to Russia, China, and Iran are attempting to spy on people and groups involved with the US 2020 presidential election.
The Russian group which hacked the 2016 Democratic campaign is again involved in cyber-attacks. Microsoft said it was “clear that foreign activity groups have stepped up their efforts” targeting the election. Both President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden’s campaigns are being targeted.
Microsoft said in a statement “Russian hackers from the Strontium group have targeted more than 200 organizations, many of which are linked to US political parties – both Republicans and Democrats.
Tom Burt, a Microsoft vice-president in charge of customer security and trust said to his statement “Similar to what we observed in 2016, Strontium is launching campaigns to harvest people’s log-in credentials or compromise their accounts, presumably to aid in intelligence gathering or disruption operations”.
The firm said Chinese hackers had launched attacks targeting individuals connected to Mr. Biden’s campaign, while Iranian hackers had continued efforts targeting people associated with the Trump campaign.
According to Microsoft Most of the cyber-attacks had not been successful. What we’ve seen is consistent with previous attack patterns that not only target candidates and campaign staffers but also those they consult on key issues. These activities highlight the need for people and organizations involved in the political process to take advantage of free and low-cost security tools to protect themselves as we get closer to election day.
Though the director of US counter-intelligence said in August that China favored Mr. Biden, Microsoft reported that Chinese groups had launched attacks on the personal email accounts of people affiliated with the Biden campaign, as well as “at least one prominent individual formerly associated with the Trump Administration”.
“Prominent individuals” in the international affairs community, academic institutions, and policy organizations were also said to have been targeted by the Chinese hacking group, known as Zirconium.
The report comes a day after a whistleblower at the US Department of Homeland Security alleged he was put under pressure to downplay the threat of Russian interference in the election as it “made the president look bad”.
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