WhatsApp accounts linked to Iranian hackers were discovered, targeting Biden and Trump.

• Meta reported that it blocked a "minuscule group" of WhatsApp accounts associated with an Iranian hacking organization that aimed to attack officials affiliated with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
• APT42, the Iranian threat actor, is believed to be the source of the fake WhatsApp accounts, according to a blog post by the company.
• In the lead-up to the November election, Meta is receiving more public scrutiny due to Facebook's past misuse and manipulation during presidential campaigns.

On Friday, it was reported that a "small cluster" of WhatsApp accounts linked to an Iranian hacking group had been blocked, as these accounts were targeting officials associated with President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

The scheme aimed to take advantage of "political and diplomatic officials, and other public figures, including some linked to the administrations of President Biden and former President Trump." Additionally, the campaign targeted individuals in Israel, Palestine, Iran, and the U.K.

In the lead-up to the November election, Meta is receiving heightened scrutiny due to Facebook's misuse and manipulation in previous presidential campaigns. The company has stated that they have not discovered any evidence of WhatsApp user accounts being compromised, and they are disclosing more information to "law enforcement and our industry counterparts."

After analyzing suspicious messages reported by an unspecified number of users from fraudulent WhatsApp accounts, Meta's security team identified APT42's involvement.

"Meta stated in a blog post that the accounts in question were posing as technical support for AOL, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Some of the individuals targeted by APT42 reported suspicious messages to WhatsApp using Meta's in-app reporting tools."

Earlier this month, the Trump campaign and Microsoft announced that a foreign actor had illegally obtained internal communications from the Trump campaign's network, and that a group affiliated with APT42 had sent a spear phishing email to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor.

Microsoft reported in 2019 that it had discovered several hackers affiliated with the Iranian government who were suspected of attacking an unnamed U.S. presidential campaign, as well as other government officials and media.

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