Iranian hackers sent messages over the summer to people involved in then-president Joe Biden’s re-election campaign containing non-public material from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign, U.S. security agencies said Wednesday in new information released by the agency, as part of an effort to influence the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.
“Furthermore, Iranian malicious cyber actors have continued their efforts since June to send stolen, non-public materials related to former President Trump’s campaign to U.S. media organizations,” the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a joint statement.
According to Politico magazine, it is unclear to what extent the Biden campaign read or benefited from the information sent by the Iranians at the time.
The campaigns of US election candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris commented on Wednesday on the new announcement by US security agencies.
The Trump campaign said in a statement that the hacking was “further evidence that the Iranians are actively interfering in the election to help Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.”
“A small number of individuals were targeted via personal emails,” Harris campaign spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein said in a statement. “We have been cooperating with law enforcement since we learned that individuals associated with the then-Biden campaign were among the victims of this foreign influence operation.”
“We are not aware of any materials being sent directly to the campaign; a small number of people have been targeted on their personal emails with what appears to be a spam or phishing attempt, and we condemn in the strongest terms any effort by foreign actors to interfere in the U.S. election, including this malicious, unsolicited and unacceptable activity,” she continued.
“We have strong cybersecurity measures in place, and employees are trained to be vigilant against malicious content,” she added.
It is noteworthy that the US State Department warned Iran, last August, of the consequences of any interference in the presidential elections following the Harris campaign’s announcement that it had been targeted by foreign hackers. This was days after the Trump campaign claimed that it had been hacked by Iran.
The Trump campaign had accused Tehran at the time of being behind a hacking operation that targeted it and distributing documents to media outlets related to research conducted to verify the background of Republican vice presidential candidate Jay D. Vance.
Tehran, in turn, denies any interference in the US elections.
Source: RT+ CNN
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2024-09-20 01:27:25