Meta says Iran hack also targeted Biden, Trump administration staffers

Meta said the Iranian hackers who targeted both Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns also tried to target some of the Biden and Trump administration staff.

In an update on its threat disruption efforts, Meta said it found a “small cluster of likely social engineering activity” on WhatsApp that its security team blocked after receiving and investigating user reports.

Meta said the malicious activity originated in Iran and intended to attack people in Israel, Palestine, Iran, the United States and the United Kingdom.

“This effort appeared to have focused on political and diplomatic officials, and other figures, including some associated with the administration of President Biden and former President Trump,” Meta said.

Former President Trump’s campaign said earlier this month that it had been hacked by Iran.

The FBI and other intelligence agencies announced Monday that it had concluded Iran carried out the hacking of the Trump campaign and the country was seeking to disrupt presidential campaigns in the U.S.

Accounts posing as technical support for AOL, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were part of phishing tactics that stole people’s credentials to online accounts, the tech company said.

“The vigilance of these users to report the messages to us suggests that these efforts were unsuccessful. We have not seen evidence that their accounts were compromised,” Meta said.

Meta said it strongly encourages public figures, journalists, political candidates and campaigns to “remain vigilant” by using privacy and security settings, avoid engaging with messages from unknown people and reporting suspicious activity.