Washington
\nIran was behind a recent hack targeting Donald Trump\u2019s presidential campaign, US security agencies said Monday, accusing Tehran of seeking to influence the 2024 election.
\nThe statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) confirmed the Trump campaign claim from earlier this month that it had been targeted, potentially by Iran.
\n\u201cWe have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns,\u201d the security agencies said.
\n\u201cThis includes the recently reported activities to compromise former president Trump\u2019s campaign, which the (intelligence community) attributes to Iran,\u201d they said.
\nIn response, Iran\u2019s mission to the United Nations denied the country\u2019s role in the hack and challenged Washington to release evidence for the claim.
\n\u201cSuch allegations are unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing,\u201d the mission said in a statement.
\n\u201cAs we have previously announced, the Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intention nor the motive to interfere with the US presidential election.
\n\u201cShould the US government genuinely believe in the validity of its claims, it should furnish us with the pertinent evidence \u2014 if any \u2014 to which we will respond accordingly.\u201d
\nThe United States goes to the polls on November 5, with both Trump\u2019s and Democratic rival Kamala Harris\u2019s campaigns saying they had been targeted by cyberattacks in recent weeks.
\nUS-based tech companies have also said they detected such attacks.
\nThe US intelligence community said Monday it was \u201cconfident\u201d that Iran had used social engineering and other methods to target individuals in both campaigns, and that the attempts were \u201cintended to influence the US election process.\u201d
\nTrump\u2019s campaign said on August 10 that it had been hacked, blaming \u201cforeign sources\u201d for distributing internal communications and a dossier on running mate J.D. Vance.
\n\u201cThese documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our democratic process,\u201d Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
\nThe Republican former president\u2019s campaign implied Iran was behind the move as news outlet Politico reported it had received emails with the campaign material from a source who refused to identify themselves.
\nCheung cited a report from Microsoft this week that said Iranian hackers \u201csent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign.\u201d
\nThe materials received by Politico included research on vetting Vance, Trump\u2019s vice presidential pick.
\nIn 2016, a hack of Democratic National Committee emails \u2014 blamed on Russians \u2014 exposed internal party communications, including about candidate Hillary Clinton.
\nTrump, who would go on to win the election, was criticized for encouraging the hack.
\nHarris\u2019s campaign said on August 13 that it too had been targeted by foreign hackers, but did not give an indication of which country was believed to be behind the attempt.
\n\u201cIn July, the campaign legal and security teams were notified by the FBI that we were targeted by a foreign actor influence operation,\u201d a Harris campaign official told AFP.
\nGoogle said this month that hackers backed by Iran were targeting the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns.
\nA hacker group known as APT42 linked to Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps went after high-profile individuals and organizations in Israel and the United States, including government officials and political campaigns, according to a threat report released by Google.
\nGoogle\u2019s threat analysis group continues to see unsuccessful attempts from APT42 to compromise personal accounts of individuals affiliated with Biden, Harris and Trump, the report said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington Iran was behind a recent hack targeting Donald Trump\u2019s presidential campaign, US security agencies said Monday, accusing Tehran of seeking to influence the 2024 election. The statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) confirmed the Trump […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-426111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n