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Google reports it has stopped a series of attempts to hack the email accounts of tens of thousands of Iranian users in what the company believes is an attempt to influence the country's upcoming election, the Guardian reports.

"For almost three weeks, we have detected and disrupted multiple email-based phishing campaigns," Eric Grosse, the vice-president for security engineering, wrote in a post on Google's blog on Wednesday. The phishing campaigns are originating in Iran, targeting users there and representing a big surge in the region's hacking activity before Iran's presidential election on Friday, Grosse said.

"The timing and targeting of the campaigns suggest that the attacks are politically motivated," he said. He did not give further details.

The relatively routine phishing attempts direct users to fake account maintenance pages where they are asked to give their username and password, Grosse said.