Iran is amping up tactics to influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election, aimed at targeting both conservative and liberal nominees by creating fake news outlets.
Microsoft reported Thursday that Iran has officially laid the groundwork in recent weeks to influence the outcome of the election between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Its efforts include stirring up controversy and swaying voters to increase “social discord” with just three months until the November election.
One of the fake news sites that Iranian operatives have created, called “Nio Thinker,” includes referring to Trump as an “opioid-pilled elephant in the MAGA china shop” and a “raving mad litigious.” Another, called “Savannah Time,” claims to be a “trusted source for conservative news,” which focuses on progressive LGBTQ policies and gender-affirming surgeries. The sites use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to plagiarize their content from real U.S. news sites.
Microsoft said it believes the Iranian group has been “setting itself up for activities that are even more extreme, including intimidation or inciting violence against political figures or groups, with the ultimate goals of inciting chaos, undermining authorities, and sowing doubt about election integrity.”
Yet another Iranian group, this one connected with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from the compromised email account of a former senior advisor. The email contained a link that would direct traffic through a domain controlled by the group before routing to the website of the provided link. Within days of this activity, the same group unsuccessfully attempted to log into an account belonging to a former presidential candidate. We’ve since notified those targeted. A fourth Iranian group compromised an account of a county-level government employee in a swing state. The compromise was part of a broader password spray operation and Microsoft Threat Intelligence did not observe the actor gain additional access beyond the single account, making it hard to discern the group’s ultimate objectives. Since early 2023, the group’s operations have focused on strategic intelligence collection particularly in satellite, defense, and health sectors with some targeting of US government organizations, often in swing states.
This comes as the U.S. has warned Iran to refrain from launching a retaliatory attack against Israel as tensions heighten between the two regions.
According to the Wall Street Journal, a U.S. official said there would be "serious risk" for Iran’s economy and government if the terrorist country strikes back against Israel for the recent killing of a senior Hamas leader in Tehran. Iran has vowed to retaliate. However, it is unclear when they would carry out a strike.
Earlier this week, Israel launched an airstrike in Lebanon, killing four Hezbollah fighters who have doled out attacks on Israel in the past weeks.