Microsoft security researchers allege a state-backed Iranian cyber team responded to Charlie Hebdo's cartoon contest by hacking and leaking an extensive subscriber database to instil fear.

According to a blog post released by the tech giant on Friday, the FBI holds the same Iranian cyberterrorist, Emennet Pasargad, accountable for a campaign that aimed to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election. 

Iran has recently increased its cyber operations under false pretences to tarnish adversaries.

According to Microsoft's Digital Threat Analysis Center, a group going by the name 'Holy Souls' and posing as hacktivists claimed to have acquired personal data on 200,000 members and purchasers of Charlie Hebdo products in early January.

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The 200-record sample, which 'may put the magazine's subscribers in danger for online or physical targeting' by extremists,' was made public by 'Holy Souls' as evidence of the data theft. 

It contained the names, phone numbers, homes and email addresses of Charlie Hebdo subscribers. The group then advertised the purported data cache for $340,000 on several dark websites.

Microsoft claimed that it was unaware of any cache purchases.

• On Friday, a Charlie Hebdo spokeswoman stated that the publication would not comment on the Microsoft study. The Iranian representative waited to answer the UN's Friday request for comment.

• The Charlie Hebdo cartoon contest issue was published on January 4 at the same time as the sample release. Participants were instructed to create derogatory caricatures of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader.

• According to Microsoft, the French daily Le Monde confirmed multiple victims of the leak from the sample. Through fictitious French 'sock-puppet' accounts on social networking sites like Twitter, the Iranian cybercriminals hoped to spread the word of the hack-and-leak operation and incite anger over the cartoon edition, according to Microsoft.

• The action co-occurred as verbal tirades from Tehran denouncing Charlie Hebdo's 'insult.' The provocatively satirical publication has a long history of running crude caricatures that detractors find highly offensive to Muslims. 

• Charlie Hebdo has been the target of several attacks throughout the years, including the 2015 office attack by two al-Qaida fanatics of French descent that claimed the lives of 12 cartoonists.

• The publication described the Khamenei caricature competition as an expression of support for the widespread anti-government demonstrations that have erupted across Iran since the mid-September death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman detained by Iran's morality police for allegedly disobeying the nation's strict Islamic dress code. 

Mahsa was accused of breaking the code by the morality police.

After the cartoon controversy was made public, a decades-old French research facility was shut down in Iran. It announced sanctions last week against more than 30 European people and organisations, including three senior Charlie Hebdo employees.

 The restrictions on travel to Iran and the ability for Iranian officials to close bank accounts and seize property make the sanctions primarily symbolic.

Regardless of one's opinion on Charlie Heb do's editorial decisions, Microsoft stated that the disclosure of personally identifiable information about tens of thousands of its customers constituted a severe threat.