An Iranian government-backed hacking collective is waging widespread cyberattacks, using a range of increasingly sophisticated of tactics to dupe victims into clicking on malicious links, according to a blog posted this weekend by Google's Threat Analysis Group.
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Known variously as APT35, Phosphorous, Charming Kitten and Ajax Security team, the group has been active for years, yet came into international prominence after targeting a US presidential campaign in last year's election.
In a post entitled "Countering threats from Iran," Google analysis say that "APT35, an Iranian group, which regularly conducts phishing campaigns targeting high-risk users. This is the one of the groups we disrupted during the 2020 US election cycle for its targeting of campaign staffers."
The collective has long "hijacked accounts, deployed malware and used novel techniques to conduct espionage aligned with the interests of the Iranian government."
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"Iran is very affected by how the international community sees it and puts pressure on it," according to Shane Huntley, director of the Threat Analysis Group.
Google said that so far in 2021 it has issued upward of 50,000 warnings to account holders who had been targeted by these phishing or malware attempts.
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
