Iran hackers target US officials to influence election, Microsoft says

Microsoft researchers said on Friday that Iran government-tied hackers tried breaking into the account of a "high-ranking official" on the US presidential campaign in June, weeks after breaching the account of a county-level US official. The breaches were part of Iranian groups' increasing attempts to influence the US presidential election in November, the researchers said in a report that did not provide any further detail on the apparent official in question. The report follows recent statements by senior US intelligence officials that they had seen Iran ramp up use of clandestine social media accounts with the aim to use them to try to sow political discord in the US. The report also reveals how Russia and China are exploiting US political polarization to advance their own divisive messaging in a consequential election year. Iran's mission to the UN in New York told Reuters in a statement that its cyber capabilities were "defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces" and that it had no plans to launch cyber-attacks.