Jane Edwards
Microsoft has identified a threat group that attempted to identify and target email accounts belonging to a U.S. presidential campaign, journalists and government officials.
Tom Burt, corporate vice president for customer security and trust at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post published Friday that the cyber group, dubbed Phosphorus, is believed to have ties to the Iranian government and made over 2,700 attempts to identify email accounts during a 30-day period between August and September.
Of those attempts, 241 accounts were attacked. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center found that four accounts were breached but such accounts were not linked to U.S. government officials or with the presidential campaign.
Burt wrote that the company has informed customers about the cyber threat and has reached out to individuals whose accounts were breached. Phosphorus used personal information and phone numbers of their targets to authenticate password resets.
