The US government has concluded the Iranian government is behind the hack and leak operation targeting former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and also attempted to target the Biden-Harris campaign, the FBI and other US intelligence agencies said Monday, according to CNN.
The FBI in recent days briefed Trump on their preliminary findings, after news organizations reported receiving documents believed to have come from an account belonging to a senior Trump campaign official.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has said the hackers were unsuccessful in their attempts against the Biden-Harris campaign.
“The IC is confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the Presidential campaigns of both political parties. Such activity, including thefts and disclosures, are intended to influence the U.S. election process,” the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a statement Monday.
“It is important to note that this approach is not new. Iran and Russia have employed these tactics not only in the United States during this and prior federal election cycles but also in other countries around the world,” the statement added.
In the recent hacking operation, investigators believe the suspected Iranian hackers in June breached the personal email account of longtime Trump ally and political operative Roger Stone, and then used that email account to try to break into the account of a senior Trump campaign official as part of a persistent effort to access campaign networks, CNN had previously reported.
In addition to the hack, an AOL account using the pseudonymous name “Robert” has leaked internal Trump campaign documents to media outlets. One of those documents was a research file on Trump’s vice presidential running mate JD Vance, Politico reported.
The FBI, which announced it was probing the hacking last week, has studied email records provided by Microsoft, Google and AOL and has spoken to Trump campaign personnel to determine who was responsible for the hack and who was responsible for the leak, sources said.
Attribution to the hack was fairly straightforward: The hackers’ techniques matched those of a notorious group affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
A person familiar with the email exchanges between “Robert” and reporters said that whoever was behind the account spoke halting English and pressured a reporter to publish more of the documents.
The Iranian hackers have also targeted the email accounts of current US officials and people associated with Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden, researchers at Google said last week.