By Pishtaz | 2024-04-04

The United States is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of any foreign person or entity interfering in US elections.

Some cyber interference campaigns are conducted by companies and individuals working for Iranian military and intelligence establishments, specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), researchers say.

Among them is the Emennet Pasargad cyber company (formerly Eeleyanet Gostar and Net Peygard Samavat Company), which led a multi-faceted influence campaign targeting the 2020 US presidential elections.

In its attempt to target the 2020 elections, the company and its employees -- six of whom are now under US sanctions -- obtained confidential US voter information from at least one state election website.

They sent threatening email messages to intimidate voters, created and disseminated a video containing disinformation about non-existent voting vulnerabilities and attempted to access several voting-related websites.

They also gained unauthorized access to a US media company's computer network.

Emennet employees Fatemeh Sadeghi, Ali Mahdavian, Elaheh Yazdi and Seyyed Mehdi Hashemi Toghroljerdi (who serves on the company's board) all participated in the election interference campaign.

Emennet cyber actors Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi and Sajjad Kashian also took part in attempted interference in US elections.

Kazemi and Kashian allegedly obtained confidential voter information and sent menacing emails, pushing out false information to influence both Democratic and Republican voters, and attempted to hack into state voting-related websites.

FBI information indicates that Emennet poses a broader cybersecurity threat.

Since 2018, it has targeted the news, shipping, travel (hotels and airlines), oil and petrochemical, financial and telecommunications industries, in the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

In March 2023, Microsoft said it had identified that Emennet Pasargad was behind a cyberattack on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, AFP reported.

The hackers, who called themselves "Holy Souls" and whose operation Microsoft dubbed "Neptunium," offered a subscriber database stolen from the newspaper for sale online for 20 bitcoin ($460,000), Microsoft said.