Meta has WhatsApp accounts blocked The company has revealed that the suspicious activity on WhatsApp “attempted to target individuals in Israel, Palestine, Iran, the United States and the United Kingdom.” It also appears to have focused on political and diplomatic officials, including people associated with both presidential candidates.
The WhatsApp attackers posed as tech support representatives for AOL, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, though Meta did not say how they attempted to compromise their victims’ accounts. Some of them reported the activity to the company, prompting it to launch an investigation. Meta said it believes the perpetrators’ efforts were unsuccessful and that it has not seen any evidence that the targets’ accounts were compromised. Nonetheless, it reported the malicious activity to law enforcement and shared information with both presidential campaigns.
Earlier this month, Google also published a report detailing how APT42 has been targeting high-profile users in Israel and the United States for years. The company said it observed “failed attempts” to compromise the “accounts of individuals affiliated with President Biden, Vice President Harris, and former President Trump.” While Google described the APT42 attacks as “failed,” the group had successfully infiltrated the account of at least one high-profile victim: Roger Stone, who is a close political confidant of Trump. The FBI previously reported that he had fallen victim to phishing emails sent by the Iranian hackers, who then used his account to send more phishing emails to his contacts.
