Trump Campaign Says Its Internal Messages Were Hacked, Points Finger At Iran
This incident followed a similar breach of a county-level US official’s account just weeks earlier.
The campaign of Donald Trump has reported a security breach, stating that internal communications were hacked, with suspicions pointing to Iranian operatives being responsible.
According to a report by Politico on Saturday, the news outlet received leaked campaign documents via email, including sensitive research on Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, a senator from Ohio.
“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election,” a campaign spokesman told the BBC.
Politico said it had verified the authenticity of the leaked documents, but the BBC has not independently confirmed the claims.
The Trump campaign has not provided additional information or evidence to support its allegations of Iranian involvement in the leak.
The campaign’s statement follows a recent Microsoft report, which revealed that Iranian hackers targeted a US presidential candidate’s campaign in June, but the campaign has not substantiated its claims with concrete evidence.
Microsoft researchers revealed on Friday that hackers linked to the Iranian government attempted to compromise the account of a senior official involved in the US presidential campaign in June.
This incident followed a similar breach of a county-level US official’s account just weeks earlier.
According to the researchers’ report, these incidents are part of a broader effort by Iranian groups to influence the upcoming US presidential election in November.
However, the report did not provide further details about the targeted official. This news comes after senior US intelligence officials warned of Iran’s increased use of covert social media accounts to spread political discord in the US.
In response, Iran’s UN mission in New York stated that its cyber capabilities are solely defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces, denying any plans to launch cyber attacks.
“The U.S. presidential election is an internal matter in which Iran does not interfere,” the mission added in response to the allegations by Microsoft’ researchers as reported by Reuters.
“A group run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence unit sent a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign” and “another group with assessed links to the IRGC compromised a user account with minimal access permissions at a county-level government,” the report said.
According to Microsoft researchers, the hacking attempts appear to be part of a larger effort by Iranian groups to gather intelligence on US political campaigns and target key swing states in the upcoming election.
