(AFP) US computing giant Microsoft said Friday that it had identified Iranian state actors as those behind the recent cyberattack on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Clint Watts, the general manager of Microsoft’s Digital Threat Analysis Center, said that the hackers, who called themselves “Holy Souls,” were Iranian cybersecurity firm Emennet Pasargad.
In early January Holy Souls announced they had obtained the personal information of more than 200,000 Charlie Hebdo customers, and published a sample of the data as proof.
The cyberattack came after Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a special edition to mark the anniversary of the 2015 attack on its Paris offices that left 12 dead.
