Microsoft's Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) has previously sounded alarms about reported efforts by state-funded cybercriminal actors to create fake news and social media posts to sow division in the US ahead of the 2024 Presidential elections. Earlier this year, it said that state actors from China were creating fake news for this type of activity.
This week, the MTAC posted another report, this time on alleged efforts from Iran-based actors to make fake news about the upcoming election. In a blog post, Microsoft stated that these groups, with ties to the Iranian government, have been increasing these types of efforts in recent weeks:
First, they’ve laid the groundwork for influence campaigns on trending election-related topics and begun to activate these campaigns in an apparent effort to stir up controversy or sway voters – especially in swing states. Second, they’ve launched operations that Microsoft assesses are designed to gain intelligence on political campaigns and help enable them to influence the elections in the future.
The report itself (in PDF format) goes into more detail on these activities. The Iran-based actors have been posting fake news sites that target both conservative and liberal political audiences. There's also evidence that these state-sponsored efforts have used AI "to plagiarize at least some of their content from US publications."
Other efforts that have been detected by the MTAC by these Iran-based actors include attempts to log into an email account that belongs to an unnamed former US presidential candidate, and ways to try to incite violence against political figures or groups.
The report also mentions continued efforts by state-sponsored actors from Russia and China to influence the 2024 elections. One Russia-based group, Storm-1516, is particularly active. Microsoft says they have been making fake news videos that try to create false scandals about the election and they expect this group to continue this kind of activity until the elections in November.
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