According to reports, these include the investigation that the Trump campaign conducted on the vice presidential contender JD Vance.
Late in the month of June and early in the month of July, Iranian hackers sent unsolicited emails to individuals involved with the leadership of President Biden. According to a joint statement published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, those emails contained snippets from information that were not available to the general public and had been taken from the campaign of former President Donald Trump. A clarification was provided by the federal government stating there is no proof that those receivers responded to the sender. In addition, the criminals distributed stolen materials to other news outlets, such as The Washington Post and Politico, among others.
During the month of August, The Post reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was conducting an investigation into an attempt by Iranian hackers to penetrate both Trump’s and Biden’s (now Kamala Harris’) campaigns by employing spear-phishing techniques. There was no proof that anyone from the Democratic Party had fallen for their plan, according to the federal government. However, it has been alleged that the malicious actors were able to acquire control of an email account that belonged to Roger Stone, a long-time adviser to Donald Trump. They then used this account to send more emails to Stone’s contact list that contained links to spear-phishing websites.
“As the lead for threat response, the FBI has been tracking this activity, has been in contact with the victims, and will continue to investigate and gather information in order to pursue and disrupt the threat actors responsible,” according to the notice that the authorities issued.
The materials that were taken were allegedly transferred from an AOL account through emails that were signed with the name “Robert,” as reported by The Post. The magazine questioned them about their connection to Iranian cyber attackers, and they denied that they were related to them. According to The Post, the documents that were sent out include research conducted by the Trump campaign on JD Vance, the Republican contender for vice president, as well as the findings of an internal poll. However, the federal government did not specify what materials were sent out.
At this time, the Trump campaign is requesting that the Harris campaign reveal the papers that it has obtained, while simultaneously requesting that news organizations refrain from publishing the stolen information. Morgan Finkelstein, a spokesperson for Harris, stated that the Democratic campaign is cooperating with authorities because several of their employees were also targeted on their personal emails. However, the campaign is “not aware of any material being sent” to them directly.
In the past, Microsoft discovered proof that a group with ties to the Iranian government was responsible for the creation of a website that taunts and attacks former President Trump. However, Iran is not the only nation that is attempting to meddle with the presidential election that will take place in the United States this year. Microsoft has discovered that Russian troll farms with ties to the Kremlin are conducting disinformation campaigns with the goal of bringing Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, into disrepute. These Russian troll farms have been distributing videos that are not legitimate and portray the Democratic nominees in a negative light. One of these videos made use of a phony actor to accuse Harris of being engaged in a hit-and-run accident that occurred in 2011 and left a girl who was 13 years old completely crippled behind.