Less than two few weeks before the 2020 US presidential election, tens of thousands of emails purportedly from the far-right group Proud Boys threatened to “go behind” the Democrats if they didn’t vote for Trump. As officials warned at the time, the messages were part of Iran’s broader disinformation and influence campaign aimed at sowing divisions in the United States and undermining trust in the United States. election process. Now, the US Department of Justice has made public an indictment accusing two Iranian nationals of carrying out those email blasts and more, providing new details of a daring election interference conspiracy.
Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi, 24, and Sajjad Kashian, 27, face charges of conspiracy, transmission of interstate threats, computer fraud and voter intimidation. The two are believed to have worked for the Iranian cybersecurity company Emennet Pasargad, which Justice Department officials said contracted with the Iranian government. In addition to the indictment, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions on Thursday against the company, four leading members and two defendants.
“As alleged, Kazemi and Kashian were part of a coordinated conspiracy in which Iranian hackers sought to undermine trust and confidence in the US presidential election,” said Damian Williams, US attorney. United for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement Thursday. “Due to the allegations that have not been sealed today, and the concurrent efforts of our US government partners, Kazemi and Kashian will forever be on their side as we strive to bring them first.” Justice.”
Officials say they believe the defendants are currently in Iran. The State Department has announced a reward of up to 10 million USD for information about Kazemi and Kashian.
In addition to the threatening email campaign, the two men also attempted to hack voter registration databases in 11 states, and succeeded in one state, where they were able to obtain more than one, court documents said. 100,000 personal voter data due to misconfiguration. Officials declined to specify the status, but The Wall Street Journal report in October 2020, it’s Alaska.
The defendants are also accused of hacking an unnamed media company that provides content management services to a number of newspapers and other publications across the United States. After detecting this activity, the FBI alerted the company, which took action to block unauthorized access. Officials say the attackers tried to connect to the media company’s network the day after the election but were shut down. Iranian hackers are famous for making and distributing Legitimate fake articles or even appear to be attacking real news sites to Post produced content.
The indictment also alleges the defendants engaged in other types of influence activities. Again posing as the Proud Boys, they allegedly sent Facebook messages and emails to Republican members of Congress, Trump campaign staff and journalists, claiming that the Democrats had taken over. plans to exploit security vulnerabilities in state voter registration, mail-in ballot manipulation and fake registration websites. voters. They are also alleged to have created and distributed a fake hacking demonstration video on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to show attackers exploiting a vulnerability in election infrastructure to compromise state voter websites. state and other platforms and generate fraudulent absentee ballots.
