The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a private industrial notice to protect against malicious activity by Iranian cyber company Emannet Passargad (formerly known as Ilianet Gostar).
Two Iranian nationals employed by the company were indicted in October 2021 by a grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on charges of involvement in a campaign to influence and interfere with the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Syed Mohammad Hussein Musa Kazemi and Sajjad Kashian were charged with conspiracy to conduct a sophisticated campaign against others, including sending threatening emails to voters, hacking into the computer network of an American media company and disguised as a far-right organization. To make Electoral ballot.
Department of Foreign Asset Control Treasury Office Approved Imnet, four members of the company’s management team, and Kazemi and Kashian for trying to influence the same election.
The Notice Mentioned that Emmenet had previously conducted cyber-enabled information operations that used a false flag personality to propagate through text messages.
“According to the FBI, at the end of 2018, the group disguised as the ‘Yemen Cyber Army’ and created critical messages from Saudi Arabia,” the notice said.
“Emannet also expressed interest in using bulk SMS services, perhaps as a way to spread the word about promotions or other messaging.”
The notification included a summary of Eminet’s past strategies, tactics and procedures (TTPs), which use virtual private network services to obscure the source of their activity.
Over the past three years, Emennet has selected potential victims by conducting web searches for leading businesses in various sectors. The group will then scan business websites that were shown in search results for vulnerable software that could be exploited to establish endless access.
Data collected by the FBI indicates that Imnett sought to take advantage of cyber intrusions directed by other actors for his own benefit.
“This includes searching for data hacked and leaked by other actors and trying to identify webshells that may be installed or used by other cyber-actors,” the FBI said.
