Iranian Hackers Face U.S. Indictment for Voter Intimidation

The Justice Department has indicted two Iranian hackers for seeking to influence the 2020 election by sending threatening messages, many of which were designed to look like they were from the Proud Boys right-wing extremist group to several thousand voters after breaking into some voter registration systems and at least one media company, reports the New York Times. Facebook messages and emails from the Iranians to Republicans falsely claimed the Democrats were planning to exploit security vulnerabilities in state voter databases to register nonexistent voters.

Hackers also sent tens of thousands of emails to Democrats demanding recipients change their party affiliation and vote for President Donald J. Trump. The media company the hackers targeted provides a content management system for dozens of newspapers. The indictment was announced after the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, issued a bulletin warning of a broad, state-sponsored Iranian campaign to get into American computer networks, including hospitals. The two men were employed by a cybersecurity firm that claims to do defensive work for the Iranian government, but is suspected of focusing its efforts on offensive cyber activities ranging from data theft to network sabotage.