Between late June and early July, Iranian hackers sent unsolicited emails to members of the Biden campaign. According to a joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the emails contained excerpts of non-public materials stolen from former President Trump’s election campaign. The federal government stated that there was no evidence that the recipients responded to the senders. Additionally, the hackers sent stolen materials to news outlets such as The Washington Post and Politico.
The Washington Post reported in August that the FBI was investigating Iranian hackers’ attempts to use spear-phishing tactics to infiltrate the Trump and Biden (now Kamala Harris) campaigns. The bureau found no evidence that any Democrats fell for their scheme. However, the hackers reportedly took over the email account of longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone and used it to send more emails containing spear-phishing links to Stone’s contact list.
“As the leader in responding to this threat, the FBI is tracking this activity and in contact with victims, and will continue to investigate and gather intelligence to pursue and disrupt those responsible for the threat,” the agency said in a statement.
According to The Washington Post, the stolen materials were sent in emails signed “Robert” from an AOL account. In response to questions from The Washington Post, they denied any links to Iranian cyber actors. The federal government did not disclose what materials were sent, but The Washington Post reported that they included the results of the Trump campaign’s investigation of Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and internal polling results.
The Trump campaign is now asking the Harris campaign to disclose what materials it received and asking media outlets not to publish the stolen information. Harris campaign spokesman Morgan Finkelstein said some Democratic campaign officials are also cooperating with authorities after their personal emails were targeted, but that they are “not aware of any materials being sent” directly to them.
Microsoft previously found evidence that groups linked to the Iranian government created websites attacking and denigrating former President Trump. But Iran is not the only group attempting to interfere in this year’s U.S. presidential election. Microsoft recently reported that Russian troll farms with ties to the Kremlin are waging a disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz. These Russian troll farms have published fake videos that make the Democratic candidate look bad, including one that uses fake actors to accuse Harris of being involved in a hit-and-run that left a 13-year-old girl paralyzed in 2011.
