Russia, China and Iran hackers target US Election 2020

Hackers with ties to Russia, China and Iran are attempting to snoop on people and groups involved with the US 2020 presidential election, Microsoft says.

The Russian hackers who breached the 2016 Democratic campaign are again involved, said the tech firm, reports BBC.

Microsoft said it was "clear that foreign activity groups have stepped up their efforts" targeting the election.

Both President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden's campaigns are in the cyber-raiders' sights.

Russian hackers from the Strontium group have targeted more than 200 organisations, many of which are linked to US political parties - both Republicans and Democrats, Microsoft said in a statement.

The same cyber-attackers also targeted British political parties, said Microsoft, without specifying which ones.

Strontium is also known as Fancy Bear, a cyber-attack unit allegedly affiliated with Russian military intelligence, the GRU.

What else did Microsoft say?

"Similar to what we observed in 2016, Strontium is launching campaigns to harvest people's log-in credentials or compromise their accounts, presumably to aid in intelligence gathering or disruption operations," said Tom Burt, a Microsoft vice-president in charge of customer security and trust.

The firm said Chinese hackers had launched attacks targeting individuals connected to Mr Biden's campaign, while Iranian hackers had continued efforts targeting people associated with the Trump campaign.