A new report from Google confirmed that an Iranian hacking group has targeted former President Trump’s campaign as well as the campaigns of President Biden and now Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Thursday report comes days after the Trump campaign confirmed that it was hacked. Google’s report does not weigh in on whether the Iranian APT42 hacking group was responsible for the leak, but it did confirm that the group has at least attempted to infiltrate dozens of email accounts associated with the various campaigns, Politico reported Thursday.
Google says it has blocked “numerous” attempts to log in to campaign accounts.
The report says Google “continues to observe unsuccessful attempts from APT42 to compromise the personal accounts of individuals affiliated with President Biden, Vice President Harris and former President Trump, including current and former government officials and individuals associated with the campaigns.”
The report added that APT42 “successfully gained access” to the account of a high-profile political consultant, though it did not identify the individual.
The report comes just after the FBI said it was looking into the hacking attack against Trump’s team earlier this week. The claim of Iranian involvement came shortly after Microsoft issued a report detailing foreign agents’ attempts to interfere in the U.S. campaign in 2024.
That report cited an instance of an Iranian military intelligence unit in June sending “a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor.”
“These 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,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations, when asked about the claim of the Trump campaign, denied being involved.
However, Iran has long been suspected of running hacking campaigns targeting its enemies in the Middle East and beyond. Tehran also has threatened to retaliate against Trump over the 2020 drone strike he ordered that killed prominent Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
In its report, Microsoft stated that “foreign malign influence concerning the 2024 US election started off slowly but has steadily picked up pace over the last six months due initially to Russian operations, but more recently from Iranian activity.”
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