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Less than two A few weeks before the 2020 US presidential election, The far-right group Proud Boys believes ten thousand emails He threatened to come “behind” the Democrats if they did not vote for Trump. Officials warned at the time that the messages were part of a broader disinformation and influence campaign in Iran to sow divisions in the U.S. and weaken confidence in the electoral process. Now, the U.S. Department of Justice has released an indictment accusing two Iranian citizens of committing these email explosions and more, giving new details about a bold scheme of electoral interference.
Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi, 24, and Sajjad Kashian, 27, are charged with conspiracy, transmitting threats between states, computer fraud and voter fear. Both were allegedly working for the Iranian cybersecurity company Emennet Pasargad, according to Justice Department officials who have been hired by the Iranian government. In addition to the indictment, the Office of External Assets Control of the Treasury Department announced sanctions on Thursday against the company, four members of its management and two defendants.
“It is believed that Kazemi and Kashian were part of a coordinated conspiracy where Iranian hackers sought to undermine faith and confidence in the U.S. presidential election,” U.S. District Attorney for New York’s South American Damian Williams said Thursday. “As a result of the sealed accusations today and the simultaneous efforts of members of the U.S. government, Kazemi and Kashian will forever look over their shoulders as we strive to bring them to justice.”
Officials believe the defendants are in Iran. The State Department announced a $ 10 million prize for information about Kazemi and Kashian.
Court documents say that in addition to the threatening email campaign, the two men tried to compromise voter registration databases in 11 states and succeeded in one, where they were able to receive more than private voter data due to a misconfiguration. Officials refused to identify the statue, however The Wall Street Journal reported It was Alaska in October 2020.
Defendants are also accused of hacking an unnamed media company that provides content management services to various U.S. newspapers and other publications. After detecting the activity, the FBI alerted the company, which took steps 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. They are known to practice and distribute Iranian hackers fake news of legitimate appearance or even hacking seemingly real news sites post manufactured content.
The prosecution accuses the defendants of conducting other acts of influence. Once again disguised as Proud Boys, he allegedly sent Facebook messages and emails to Republican members of Congress, Trump campaign staff and journalists, saying the Democratic party intended to exploit security vulnerabilities in state voter registration sites, edit postal votes and register fake voters. . They allegedly created and distributed a fake video showing the hack on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, showing the attackers exploiting vulnerabilities in the election infrastructure to jeopardize state voter websites and other platforms and create absent fraudulent polls.
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