Aug 23 - Meta said on Friday it had identified

possible hacking attempts on the WhatsApp accounts of U.S.

officials from the administrations of both President Joe Biden

and former President Donald Trump, blaming the same Iranian

hacker group revealed earlier this month to have compromised the

Trump campaign.

In a blog post, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram

and WhatsApp described the attempt as a "small cluster of likely

social engineering activity on WhatsApp" involving accounts

posing as technical support for AOL, Google, Yahoo and

Microsoft.

It blocked the accounts after users reported the activity as

suspicious and had not seen any evidence suggesting the targeted

WhatsApp accounts had been compromised, it said.

Meta attributed the activity to APT42, a hacking group

widely believed to be associated with an intelligence division

inside Iran's military that is known for placing surveillance

software on the mobile phones of its victims. The software

enables the team to record calls, steal text messages and

silently turn on cameras and microphones, according to

researchers who follow the group.

A spokesman for Iran's permanent mission to the United

Nations in New York declined to comment on the Meta allegation

specifically, but

previously said

"the Iranian government neither possesses nor harbors any

intent or motive to interfere in the United States presidential

election."

Meta linked the group's activity to efforts to breach U.S.

presidential campaigns reported by Microsoft and Google earlier

this month, ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

The company's blog post did not name the individuals

targeted, saying only that the hackers "appeared to have focused

on political and diplomatic officials, business and other public

figures, including some associated with administrations of

President Biden and former President Trump."

Those figures were based in Israel, the Palestinian

territories, Iran, the United States and the United Kingdom, it

added.