Microsoft says Iranian hacking group targeted a 2020 US presidential candidate

On Friday, Microsoft disclosed that it had found evidence that a group of hackers originating from Iran attempted to access email accounts belonging to a 2020 presidential candidate.

In its blog post announcing the discovery, Microsoft declines to name the targeted presidential candidate, but it affirms that their account was not compromised by the threat group the company refers to as Phosphorous.

The campaign was only one out of a group of accounts the Iranian hackers attempted to compromise within a 30-day period between August and September of this year. Microsoft says that its threat intelligence center observed the group making over 2,700 attempts to identify email accounts and then go on to “attack” 241 of them.

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