Iranian hackers plotted to disrupt election by stealing ‘sensitive’ info from Trump campaign and offering to Biden

Iranian hackers attempted to disrupt the presidential election by stealing sensitive information from Donald Trump and offering the material to the campaign of his rival Joe Biden..

In August, Microsoft announced that hackers with ties to the Iranian government had been trying to influence the US presidential election for months.

On Wednesday, the FBI alleged that the cyberterrorists sent unsolicited emails to people associated with the Democratic president in an attempt to disrupt the case.

Trump spoke out about the hacking attempt at his rally on Long Island on Wednesday: “Biden is working with Iran, and Iran is not exactly thrilled with me because they were willing to make a deal, except the election was rigged and stolen.”

Authorities said there was no evidence that any of the recipients responded, preventing the hacked information from leaking in the final months of the tense election.

Congressman Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said anyone who “whitewashed” Trump’s behavior regarding alleged Russian election interference “should skip this session.”

The hackers sent emails to people associated with Biden’s campaign in late June and early July before he withdrew.

According to a statement from the FBI and several other federal agencies, the emails “include an excerpt of stolen, non-public materials from former President Trump’s campaign embedded in the text of the emails.”

The announcement is the latest effort to expose Iran’s brazen and ongoing efforts to interfere in the 2024 election, including a hacking and leaking campaign that the FBI and other federal agencies last month linked to Tehran.

The Department of Justice is preparing charges for this violation.

The FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have said the hack of the Trump campaign and an attempted break-in into the Biden-Harris campaign are part of an effort to undermine voter confidence in the election and sow division.

On August 10, the Trump campaign announced it had been hacked, saying Iranian actors had stolen and distributed confidential internal documents.

At least three news organizations — Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post — have leaked confidential material from inside the Trump campaign.

So far, neither side has released details about what they received.

Politico reported that it began receiving emails from an anonymous account on July 22. The source — an AOL email account identified only as “Robert” — passed along what appeared to be an investigative dossier the campaign had apparently created on the Republican vice presidential candidate, a senator from Ohio. JD Vance.

The document was dated February 23, nearly five months before Trump selected Vance as his running mate.

Kamala Harris campaign spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein said in a statement that the campaign has been cooperating with law enforcement since learning that people associated with Biden’s team were among the recipients of the emails.

“We are not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign. A few individuals were contacted via their personal emails with what appeared to be spam or a phishing attempt,” Finkelstein said.

Microsoft researchers announced in August that they had found several Iranian groups spreading polarizing and inflammatory messages on controversial, politically divisive issues.

According to Microsoft’s Latest Threat Intelligence ReportCybercriminals are using secret news sites that target voter groups on opposite ends of the political spectrum to further alienate both camps.

One of the sites created specifically for Democratic Party supporters is called Nio Thinker, which insults former President Donald Trump, calling him an “opioid-swallowing elephant in the MAGA China store” and a “crazy trial attorney.”

The website, which began publishing in late October 2023, also publishes numerous sarcastic and long-winded articles criticizing Trump.

Another website, Savannah Time, on the other hand, claims to be a “reliable source for conservative news in the vibrant city of Savannah.”

This website focuses primarily on Republican politics and LGBTQ issues, particularly gender reassignment, a topic that has generated much controversy on the right.

Evidence the company found shows that these sites are using AI services to copy some of their content from US publications.

Microsoft did not mention the publications in the report. Interestingly, the report did not suggest that attacks had been carried out on Vice President Kamala Harris.

In addition, the report said that an Iranian group with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had previously attempted to break into email accounts of campaign leaders.

Iranian groups that have tried to undermine confidence in the electoral system in the past have been preparing to carry out influence operations since March 2024, researchers say.

The findings are the latest evidence that foreign governments are conducting covert operations in the run-up to the US elections in November.

In 2020, two Iranian men posed as members of the right-wing Proud Boys group as part of a voter intimidation effort, the FBIThey were later charged for their involvement.

That same election year, Iranian hackers hacked a website used by a US municipal government to publish election results.

US cybersecurity officials later clarified that the attackers were caught before they carried out any malicious activity.