Microsoft stated on Friday that an Iranian nation-state group already sanctioned by the US authorities was behind an assault final month that focused the satirical French journal Charlie Hebdo and 1000’s of its readers.
The assault got here to mild on January 4, when a beforehand unknown group calling itself Holy Souls took to the Web to assert it had obtained a Charlie Hebdo database that contained private info for 230,000 of its clients. The publish stated the database was obtainable on the market on the worth of 20 BTC, or roughly $340,000 on the time. The group additionally launched a pattern of the information that included the total names, phone numbers, and residential and electronic mail addresses of people that had subscribed to, or bought merchandise from, the publication. French media confirmed the veracity of the leaked knowledge.
The discharge of the pattern put the shoppers vulnerable to on-line focusing on or bodily violence by extremist teams, which have retaliated in opposition to Charlie Hebdo in recent times for its satirical remedy of issues pertaining to the Muslim faith and Islamic nations similar to Iran. The retaliation included the 2015 capturing by two French Muslim terrorists and brothers at Charlie Hebdo workplaces that killed 12 and injured 11 others. To additional gin up consideration to the breached knowledge, a flurry of faux personas—one falsely claiming to be a Charlie Hebdo editor—took to social media to debate and publicize the leak.
Microsoft
On Friday, Clint Watts, the final supervisor of Microsoft’s Digital Menace Evaluation Heart, wrote:
We consider this assault is a response by the Iranian authorities to a cartoon contest carried out by Charlie Hebdo. One month earlier than Holy Souls carried out its assault, the journal introduced it could be holding a global competitors for cartoons “ridiculing” Iranian Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei. The difficulty that includes the successful cartoons was to be revealed in early January, timed to coincide with the eighth anniversary of an assault by two al-Qa’ida within the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)-inspired assailants on the journal’s workplaces.
The ways, strategies, and procedures of the affect marketing campaign led Microsoft researchers to conclude it was the work of Emennet Pasargad, an Iranian group that has lengthy been monitored and focused by the US authorities. The FBI stated in January 2022 that Emennet Pasargad was behind “a multi-faceted marketing campaign to intervene within the 2020 US presidential election.”
Contributors within the operation obtained confidential US voter info from no less than one state election web site, despatched threatening emails designed to intimidate voters, and revealed a video airing disinformation regarding non-existent voting vulnerabilities. The group additionally claimed affiliation with the neo-fascist group Proud Boys to additional intimidate voters.
Final October, the FBI stated that Emennet Pasargad focused teams in Israel with “cyber-enabled info operations that included an preliminary intrusion, theft, and subsequent leak of information, adopted by amplification by way of social media and on-line boards, and in some instances the deployment of damaging encryption malware.”
The US Treasury in 2021 positioned sanctions on Emennet Pasargad and 6 Iranian nationals who’re members, citing their makes an attempt “to sow discord and undermine voters’ religion within the US electoral course of.”
Friday’s publish stated Microsoft had “excessive confidence” that the group, which the corporate refers to as Neptunium, was behind the Charlie Hebdo affect marketing campaign. The evaluation was primarily based on parts together with:
- A hacktivist persona claiming credit score for the cyberattack
- Claims of a profitable web site defacement
- Leaking of personal knowledge on-line
- The usage of inauthentic social media “sockpuppet” personas—social media accounts utilizing fictitious or stolen identities to obfuscate the account’s actual proprietor for the aim of deception—claiming to be from the nation that the hack focused to advertise the cyberattack utilizing language with errors apparent to native audio system
- Impersonation of authoritative sources
- Contacting information meida organizations
Microsoft
Microsoft stated the January marketing campaign used French-language sockpuppet social media accounts, many with low follower counts, to amplify the leak and “distribute antagonistic messaging.” The accounts additionally posted criticisms of the cartoon competitors geared toward Khamenei.
“Crucially, earlier than there had been any substantial reporting on the purported cyberattack, these accounts posted an identical screenshots of a defaced web site that included the French-language message: ‘Charlie Hebdo a été piraté’ (‘Charlie Hebdo was hacked’),” Watts wrote.
Shortly after that, no less than two social media accounts—one purporting to belong to a tech government and the opposite to a Charlie Hebdo editor—posted screenshots of the leaked buyer knowledge.
The marketing campaign Microsoft has documented is the newest reminder that social media is usually manipulated by particular curiosity teams—some with deep pockets. Folks would do properly to recollect this manipulation and watch out to confirm claims earlier than spreading them additional.
