FBI Officially Gets Involved After Trump Campaign Is Breached by Foreign Operatives
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
The FBI is investigating the cyber-breach of the Trump campaign’s communications that is believed to be the work of Iranian hackers.
Earlier this month, shortly after Microsoft announced that a presidential campaign had been breached by Iranian hackers, the Trump campaign said it had been attacked. That came after a preliminary dossier on Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio , the running mate of former President Donald Trump, was leaked to the media.
“FBI is investigating the recent cyber intrusion into the Trump campaign. We can now confirm that the FBI is investigating,” the FBI said in a statement, according to Fox News.
The campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris said it has had no cybersecurity issues.
However, Iranian hackers were also trying to breach the Biden-Harris campaign at a time when President Joe Biden was still a candidate, The Washington Post reported, citing sources it did not name.
The Post report said three Biden-Harris staffers received campaign spear-phishing emails designed to allow a hacker access to a user’s communications, but no evidence has been found that those attempts succeeded.
The FBI began investigating after Biden’s campaign was targeted, the Post reported.
The Post report noted that after the Trump campaign realized it had been breached, it did not contact the FBI due to trust issues.
Additionally, the Post report said the emails of Trump ally Roger Stone were breached.
In its scenario, emails from Stone’s account sent to the Trump campaign included a link that, if clicked on, gave Iran access to the user’s emails.
“I was informed by the authorities that a couple of my personal email accounts have been compromised,” Stone told the Post. “I really don’t know more about it. And I’m cooperating. It’s all very strange.”
On Aug. 9, Microsoft indicated how the campaign was compromised.
It said that an “Iranian group, this one connected with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from the compromised email account of a former senior advisor.”
“The email contained a link that would direct traffic through a domain controlled by the group before routing to the website of the provided link. Within days of this activity, the same group unsuccessfully attempted to log into an account belonging to a former presidential candidate. We’ve since notified those targeted,” Microsoft wrote.
The Microsoft bulletin noted that a separate Iranian group is collecting “strategic intelligence … particularly in satellite, defense, and health sectors with some targeting of U.S. government organizations, often in swing states.”
The report said two other Iranian groups were also interfering in the election. One group was trying to inflame voter opinions at each end of the political spectrum.
Another group, Microsoft said, “may be setting itself up for activities that are even more extreme, including intimidation or inciting violence against political figures or groups, with the ultimate goals of inciting chaos, undermining authorities, and sowing doubt about election integrity.”
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