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Facebook announced that Iranian hackers suspected of sending threatening messages to American voters last week were also responsible for launching a false information propaganda campaign targeting the Middle East last year.
In a company statement on Tuesday, Facebook said it had suspended at least one bogus account that attempted to post a video on its platform, showing false information that hackers could penetrate the voting system for the US presidential elections. United.
The company said that the suspended account led to more than 20 accounts on the Facebook and Instagram platforms, targeting countries such as Israel and Saudi Arabia in 2019.
US officials last week accused Iran of its involvement in sending thousands of emails, in which it threatened Democrats for assuming the name of a US group aligned with the Republican Party, in addition to the video that was widely circulated days before the US elections, which will begin on November 3.
Facebook’s director of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher said the accounts that were recently discovered were largely ineffective, but that they attempted to spread misleading information about the “massacre” during “Eurovision” competitions held in Israel on last year.
US intelligence is investigating the identity of the Iranian party that issued the attack orders and its true intentions, according to three sources familiar with the case.
On Tuesday, Glaitcher said, his team found a small number of electronic links that led them to a network responsible for the disinformation in April, which was affiliated with Iran’s official media, in addition to “relationships that lead to people associated with the government. Iranian”.
The site indicated that it had suspended two pages and 22 Instagram accounts managed by people from Mexico and Venezuela, denying false identities to carry out so-called “false coordinated behavior” to comment on activities and political positions in the United States.
Some accounts claim they are American owners, posted comments in Spanish and English on issues related to race, feminism and the environment, and the company said it was able to identify them based on information provided by the FBI.
Although the identity of these accounts was unclear, some of them posted photos previously used by the Russian government’s Internet Investigation Agency, the organization accused by the US judiciary of being involved in interfering in the 2016 US elections.
Glitcher added that both networks, plus a third that works to target internet users in Myanmar, had disclosed their efforts before reaching a large following, but added that “malicious elements” are exploiting concerns about the attempts. of interfering in elections to sow suspicion and division.
“We describe this as ‘sensory hacking,’ Glitcher said.” Instead of accessing confidential voter data or launching a massive campaign to influence public opinion, they are manipulating everyone’s fears that this really exists. ”
