Microsoft has said that at least one US presidential campaign and accounts associated with current and former US government officials have been targets of cyberattacks allegedly linked to the Iranian government.
"In a 30-day period between August and September, the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) observed Phosphorous making more than 2,700 attempts to identify consumer email accounts belonging to specific Microsoft customers and then attack 241 of those accounts", Tom Burt, Microsoft Corporate vice president and head of the tech giant’s customer security and trust team, said in a statement.
Four accounts were compromised as a result of the attempts, according to the statement. However, the four accounts were not associated with US officials.
Burt said that the attacks were "not technically sophisticated", but attempted to use a "significant amount of personal information" both to identify and attack the accounts.
Prior to this, in July, Burt claimed that about 10,000 clients of US technology company the Microsoft Corporation had become targets of state-sponsored cyberattacks over the past year.
In March, Microsoft stated that it had seized control of 99 websites that were being used by an Iranian-linked hacker outfit known as Phosphorous to steal data from businesses, government agencies, activists, and journalists.