The U.S. Department of Justice announced criminal charges against three hackers working for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) over a four-year hacking campaign that included hacking into Donald Trump's presidential campaign this year. accused.
On Friday, U.S. prosecutors filed an indictment accusing Masoud Jalili, Seyed Ali Aghamili, and Yasar Baraghi of targeting the Trump campaign, former White House and administration officials, and members of Congress as part of a hacking leak. The statement was announced. Surgery.
According to the indictment, the operation was launched as part of retaliation for the Trump administration's killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in 2020, and the Iranian government had vowed to retaliate. U.S. officials later charged at least one person with attempting to assassinate former National Security Adviser John Bolton as part of a broader Iranian effort to target former members of the Trump administration.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference Friday that part of Iran's hacking efforts are aimed at influencing the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
“The defendant's own words make clear that he sought to undermine former President Trump's campaign ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election,” Garland said. “We know that Iran continues its brazen efforts to sow discord, undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral process, and advance malign activities against the Revolutionary Guards, a designated foreign terrorist organization. ”
“Authoritarian regimes that violate the human rights of their own people have no voice in our democratic process,” Garland said. “The American people, and the American people alone, will decide the outcome of our elections.”
Three Iranian hackers, Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Agamiri, and Yasser Baraghi, have been charged with hacking activities that included infiltrating President Donald Trump's campaign. Image credit: U.S. Department of Justice
According to the indictment, the Iranian operation was used to target former government officials with phishing lures, compromise their online accounts, and steal campaign materials in order to leak files to the media.
In August, Politico, the New York Times, the Washington Post and others received documents allegedly stolen from Donald Trump's campaign. Politico reported that a person named “Robert” shared documents that appeared to be stolen from the Republican candidate's campaign.
From the beginning, the story had the hallmarks of a hack-and-leak operation, similar to the one orchestrated by the Russian government in 2016 after it hacked the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign officials. However, unlike in 2016, the press decided not to report on the contents of the document, much less make it public. Instead, reporters focused on the fact that the files had been stolen and leaked.
NBC News journalist Kevin Collier said he had seen some of the documents and said there wasn't much in the file to write about.
“At least six news organizations and independent reporters received the hacked Trump files from ‘Robert,’ a front for Iranian intelligence. So far, no reporter who saw them posted the news there. I haven’t found any,” Collier wrote in Thursday’s X.
Ten days after Politico's report, the FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and US cybersecurity agency CISA issued a joint statement accusing the Iranian government of being behind the hack-and-leak operation.
” [Intelligence Community] He believes that through social engineering and other efforts, the Iranians sought access to individuals with direct access to presidential elections in both political parties. “These activities, including theft and disclosure, are aimed at influencing the U.S. election process,” the statement said. “It is important to note that this approach is not new. Iran and Russia have employed such tactics in the United States as well as in other countries around the world during this and previous federal election cycles. .”
Microsoft and Google also accused Iranian state-backed hackers of being behind the targeting of Trump and Biden campaign officials.
On Thursday, more than a month after first reporting that journalists had the documents, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein released a 271-page document about Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance. Since June, Krippenstein said, “the press has remained silent on this document (and others), refusing to publish it for fear of contradicting the government's campaign against 'foreign influence.' I am,” he wrote.
“I disagree. This document was provided to me, but due to public interest in the lead-up to election season, I have decided to make it public,” Krippenstein wrote.