The United States on Monday, August 19, pointed the finger at Iran’s responsibility for several hacking attempts against the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, including the one revealed on August 10 by the Republican candidate’s team.
“We have seen more aggressive activities by Iran this election cycle,” the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a joint statement. “This includes recently reported activities aimed at compromising former President Donald Trump’s campaign, which the intelligence community attributes to Iran,” they said. US intelligence also believes that Iranian operatives have attempted to contact “individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both parties.”
Donald Trump’s campaign team claimed on August 10 that it had suffered a hack, accusing “foreign sources” of having leaked internal communications and a file on JD Vance, the former Republican president’s running mate. The specialist media Politico had previously claimed to have received emails containing information on the Republican’s campaign from an anonymous source. The former Republican president’s team had already insinuated at that time that Iran was behind the operation. On August 13, Kamala Harris’ campaign team also said it had been the target of foreign hackers.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations has dismissed the “allegations” as “unsubstantiated and baseless.” “As we have previously stated, the Islamic Republic of Iran has neither the intention nor the motive to interfere in the US presidential election,” it said in a statement sent to AFP. “If the US government truly believes in the validity of its claims, it should provide us with the relevant evidence – if it exists – and we will respond accordingly,” it added.
“Sowing discord”
A Google threat analysis team confirmed on August 14 that an Iran-affiliated hacking group, APT42, was targeting the two candidates’ campaigns by hacking into their staffers’ personal email accounts and by contacting them by posing as journalists. APT42 is associated with the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to Google.
Microsoft had also published on August 9 a report showing that Iran was stepping up its efforts to disrupt the November 5 U.S. election, using fake news sites, cyberattacks and hacks.
In their statement, the FBI, ODNI and CISA denounced that “Iran seeks to sow discord and undermine trust in our democratic institutions.” The United States had warned Tehran on August 12 about the consequences of interfering in the American presidential election, saying it had “a number of tools to hold Iran accountable” and the willingness to “use them” if necessary. “This approach is not new. Iran and Russia have employed these stratagems not only in the United States […] but in other countries around the world,” they say.
In 2016, Democratic Party emails were also hacked. The leak revealed internal communications involving Hillary Clinton, who ran against Donald Trump. The Republican billionaire, who won the presidential election that year, was criticized for encouraging the data hack, which was attributed to Russia. US intelligence later concluded that Russia had influenced the 2016 election in Trump’s favor, which Trump denies.