The hackers from Iran are said to be calling the victims through WhatsApp. It is reported that these hackers are impersonating journalists and reaching out to victim targets through the platform of LinkedIn. As per the reports the Iranians government hackers are all set to continue their hacking business through LinkedIn and WhatsApp. They are reaching out to targets through WhatsApp calls so that they can share their links to phishing pages and Malware infected files. When the target will click on the link or download their files a kind of malware will be downloaded in their devices. This malware can be very dangerous for the security of the personal data.
The attacks were reported in the month of July and August of 2020. The report about the same was also published by an Israeli cybersecurity form called ClearSky. The hackers are said to be members of Iranian super group CharmingKitten, also known as APT35, NewsBeef, Newscaster, or Ajax, according to Ohad Zaidenberg, ClearSky Lead Cyber Intelligence Researcher.The victims of the attack are said to be academia experts, human rights activists, and journalists specialized in Iranian affairs.
The hackers first win the trust of the targets by impersonating Persian speaking journalist working for German broadcasting Company called Deutsche Welle and Israeli magazine Jewish Journal. After arranging a WhatsApp call files including malware are send to these victims. These attacks have been carried out recently but now the hackers are said to impersonate the journalists of Wall Street journal. Many other attacks are also reported previously but the hackers are said to never call their target. The calling tactic from the hacker is a new thing.
These tactics are very new for the Iranian hacker gang but the North Korean hackers have been using this particular tactic since a very long time. These hackers have also set up fake interviews through WhatsApp calls for the employees working at various defence contractors
