(Washington) The United States on Monday 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 activity 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.
U.S. intelligence further believes that Iranian agents 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 specialized media Politico had previously reported receiving emails containing information about the Republican’s campaign from a source who declined to identify himself.
The former Republican president’s team had already insinuated at that time that Iran was behind the move.
On August 13, Kamala Harris’ campaign team also said it had been targeted by foreign hackers.
“Sowing discord”
A Google team responsible for analyzing online threats later confirmed that an Iranian-affiliated hacking group, APT42, was targeting the campaigns of both candidates by attacking the personal email accounts of their staffers, but also by contacting them by posing as journalists.
The APT42 group is associated with the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to Google.
Microsoft also published a report on August 9 showing that Iran was increasing its efforts to disrupt the American election on November 5, using fake news sites, cyberattacks and hacks.
In their statement, the FBI, ODNI and CISA denounce the fact that “Iran seeks to sow discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.”
The United States had warned Tehran on August 12 of 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, revealing internal communications involving Hillary Clinton, who ran against Donald Trump.
The billionaire, who won the presidential election that year, had been criticized for encouraging the data hack attributed to Russia.
US intelligence later concluded that Russia had influenced the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump, something the Republican denies.