Security News > 2023 > March > Iranian Hackers Target Women Involved in Human Rights and Middle East Politics

"Notably the targets in this instance were all women who are actively involved in political affairs and human rights in the Middle East region," Secureworks Counter Threat Unit said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

Another bespoke malware linked to the group is a C++-based Telegram "Grabber" tool that facilitates data harvesting on a large scale from Telegram accounts after obtaining the target's credentials.

The latest activity involves the adversary passing off as an employee of the Atlantic Council, a U.S.-based think tank, and reaching out to political affairs and human rights researchers under the pretext of contributing to a report.

To make the ruse convincing, the social media accounts associated with the fraudulent "Sara Shokouhi" persona claimed to have a PhD in Middle East politics.

What's more, the profile photos in these accounts, per SecureWorks, are said to have been taken from an Instagram account belonging to a psychologist and tarot card reader based in Russia.

The Twitter account, created in October 2022, remains active to date as is the Instagram account.

News URL

https://thehackernews.com/2023/03/iranian-hackers-target-women-involved.html