An effort believed to be tied to the Iranian government attempted to identify, attack and breach email accounts belonging to a U.S. presidential campaign, government officials and journalists, according to new data unveiled by Microsoft, highlighting the continued global security threats that loom over the fast-approaching 2020 election.
The intrusion observed by Microsoft, spearheaded by an outfit it calls Phosphorus, made more than 2,700 attempts to identify personal email addresses that belonged to the company’s customers over a 30-day period between August and September, 241 of which were then attacked. Four were compromised, but they do not belong to the presidential campaign or government officials, according to the tech giant.
On Friday, Reuters reported:
Trump’s official campaign website is the only one of the remaining major contenders’ sites that is linked to Microsoft’s cloud email service, according to an inspection of publicly available mail exchanger records.
“We have no indication that any of our campaign infrastructure was targeted,” said Trump campaign Director of Communications Tim Murtaugh.
