Facebook takes action against Iranian hacking campaign

Facebook took stringent actions against the Iranian hacker group named “Tortoiseshell” that was trying to target US defense personnel.The Iranian hackers used different tactics and methods including social engineering to influence the targets. The group deployed online personas to contact its targets, make the targets believe the personas, and lure them into clicking malicious links.

Facebook has taken stringent action against the group trying to target the defense personnel, defense firms, and U.S aerospace industries. The group was also targeting the defense firms and personnel in Europe and UK.Threat intelligence analysts and experts of Facebook are investigating the case. The group was found to use different tactics to lure the targets and infect their devices clicking them into malicious links to enable espionage.

The social networking giant posted a blog regarding the incident that, they took action against the Iranian group of hackers that was trying to disrupt especially the US defense systems by attacking the systems and conducting espionage operations.The fake accounts of personas that were created by the hackers were mostly acted of recruiters and employees of defense and the aerospace firms. Other fake accounts claimed to be the employees working in the field of medicine, journalism, airlines, and more.

The hackers also create fake recruiting websites targeting particular defense companies. It also created a fake infrastructure that spoofed a legitimate job search site used for the US Department of Labor.Facebook identified their illegitimate activities and blocked the malicious domains. Facebook took action against the group’s accounts and notified the people who were targeted by the group.