'Invasive' Iranian Intelligence Group Believed to Be The Ones Who Breached Trump's Campaign

Reuters reports that the Iranian hacking team which compromised the campaign of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump "is known for placing surveillance software on the mobile phones of its victims, enabling them to record calls, steal texts and silently turn on cameras and microphones, according to researchers and experts who follow the group."Known as APT42 or CharmingKitten by the cybersecurity research community, the accused Iranian hackers are widely believed to be associated with an intelligence division inside Iran's military, known as the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC-IO. Their appearance in the U.S. election is noteworthy, sources told Reuters, because of their invasive espionage approach against high-value targets in Washington and Israel. "What makes (APT42) incredibly dangerous is this idea that they are an organization that has a history of physically targeting people of interest," said John Hultquist, chief analyst with U.S. cybersecurity firm Mandiant, who referenced past research that found the group surveilling the cell phones of Iranian activists and protesters... Hultquist said the hackers commonly use mobile malware that allows them to "record phone calls, room audio recordings, pilfer SMS (text) inboxes, take images off of a machine," and gather geolocation data... APT42 also commonly impersonates journalists and Washington think tanks in complex, email-based social engineering operations that aim to lure their targeting into opening booby-trapped messages, which let them takeover systems. The group's "credential phishing campaigns are highly targeted and well-researched; the group typically targets a small number of individuals," said Josh Miller, a threat analyst with email security company Proofpoint. They often target anti-Iran activists, reporters with access to sources inside Iran, Middle Eastern academics and foreign-policy advisers. This has included the hacking of western government officials and American defense contractors. For example, in 2018, the hackers targeted nuclear workers and U.S. Treasury department officials around the time the United States formally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), said Allison Wikoff, a senior cyber intelligence analyst with professional services company PricewaterhouseCoopers. "APT42 is still actively targeting campaign officials and former Trump administration figures critical of Iran, according to a blog post by Google's cybersecurity research team."

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