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Meta said on Friday it had discovered possible hacks into the WhatsApp accounts of U.S. President Joe Biden and officials from former President Donald Trump’s administration, blaming the same Iranian hacking group that was exposed earlier this month for infiltrating Trump’s campaign.
In a blog post, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp described the attempt as a “small group of social engineering campaigns that may have occurred on WhatsApp” involving accounts posing as AOL, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft technical support.
The company said it blocked the accounts after users reported the activity as suspicious, but found no evidence that the targeted WhatsApp accounts had been compromised.
Meta attributed the activity to APT42, a hacking group widely believed to be linked to an intelligence unit within Iran’s military that is known for installing surveillance software on victims’ phones. The software enabled the group to record calls, steal text messages and quietly turn on cameras and microphones, according to researchers who track the group.
Investigators have linked the group’s activities to efforts reported earlier this month by Microsoft and Google to disrupt the U.S. presidential campaign ahead of the November U.S. presidential election.
The company’s blog post did not name the individuals targeted, saying only that the hackers “appeared to have focused on political and diplomatic officials, the business community, and other public figures, including some associated with the administrations of President Biden and former President Trump.”
It added that the data came from Israel, the Palestinian territories, Iran, the United States and the United Kingdom.
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