Chair of European Parliament’s Iran delegation targeted in Tehran-linked hack
The office of Hannah Neumann, a member of the German Greens and head of the delegation spearheading work on European Union-Iran relations, was targeted by a hacking campaign that started in January, she said. Her staff was contacted with messages, phone calls and emails by hackers impersonating a legitimate contact. They eventually managed to target a laptop with malicious software.
"It was a very sophisticated attempt using various ways to manage that someone accidentally opens a link, including putting personal pressure on them," Neumann said.
Neumann was made aware of the ongoing ploy four weeks ago by the German domestic intelligence service, she said.
The group thought to be behind the attack is a hacking collective associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, known as APT42, according to a report by the Parliament’s in-house IT service DG ITEC and seen by POLITICO. Another Iranian hacking group, called APT35 or Charming Kitten, was initially considered a culprit too. The two Iranian threat groups are closely related.
Hackers as part of these groups were behind the operation that stole internal communication of Donald Trump's presidential election campaign last year, leaking it to media including POLITICO. The Trump campaign later confirmed it was hacked, blaming Iran.
Neumann's office laptop was targeted by the hackers earlier this year, she said. Parliament's IT services carried out an investigation and said in their report that no sensitive information was taken since "all attempts were blocked by EP defenses" and it had been an "incomplete infection chain."
Neumann said the Iranian regime "tried in many different ways to make me shut up and they haven’t succeeded. By infiltrating my office they hoped to get material they could use to [compromise] me."
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