On Monday, the US government formally accused Iran of hacking Donald Trump's campaign.
In a joint statement issued by the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the three agencies said the intelligence community believes the recently disclosed hacks and leaks against the Trump campaign were perpetrated by Iran.
” [Intelligence Community] “We believe Iran is using social engineering and other means to attempt to gain access to individuals with direct access to presidential elections of both parties. These activities, including theft and leaks, are intended to influence the U.S. electoral process,” the statement read. “It is important to note that this technique is not new; Iran and Russia have employed these tactics in the United States during this and past federal election cycles, as well as in other countries around the world.”
The Iranian government denied the accusations in a statement sent through its permanent mission to the United Nations.
“These allegations are baseless and without merit. As we have previously announced, the Islamic Republic of Iran has no intent or motivation to interfere in the U.S. presidential elections. If the U.S. government truly believes its allegations are legitimate, it should provide us with any appropriate evidence and we will respond accordingly,” the statement sent to TechCrunch by email read.
A spokesman for Iran's U.N. mission did not immediately respond to a series of detailed questions Tuesday morning, saying the ambassador was “still in bed and starting to wake up.”
Politico first reported on August 10 that the Trump campaign had been hacked, and that someone calling themselves “Robert” had contacted the news site to provide documents that had been purportedly stolen from the campaign. The New York Times and Washington Post later said they had also been contacted by the same person and received what appeared to be similar files.
Trump himself condemned Iran in a social media post, saying “they shouldn't do this” and that it was Microsoft that had warned him and his campaign.
The day before Politico's report, Microsoft released a report stating that a group of hackers backed by the Iranian government “sent spear phishing emails to senior campaign officials from a compromised email account of a former senior adviser to the presidential campaign in June.” Last week, Google's Threat Analysis Group said it had evidence that a group of Iranian-backed hackers had targeted the email accounts of multiple individuals associated with President Biden and President Trump as early as May.
According to multiple reports, the first person to be hacked was Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to President Trump, and his account was then used to hack people associated with the Trump campaign.
So far, media outlets have not covered the leaked documents, unlike in 2016, when the Russian government conducted a months-long hacking and leaking campaign. Instead, they have focused on the hacking and leaking themselves, perhaps learning a lesson from how they unwittingly amplified a Russian operation eight years ago.