Former president Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said that it has been hacked and suggested Iranian actors were involved in stealing and distributing sensitive internal documents.
The campaign provided no specific evidence of Iran’s involvement, but Saturday’s claim comes a day after Microsoft issued a report detailing foreign agents’ attempts to interfere in the US campaign in 2024.
It cited an instance in June of an Iranian military intelligence unit sending “a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor”.
The National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Politico first reported on the hack on Saturday.
The outlet reported that it began receiving emails on July 22 from an anonymous account.
The source — an AOL email account identified only as “Robert” — passed along what appeared to be a research dossier the campaign had apparently done on the Republican vice presidential nominee, Ohio Senator JD Vance.
The document was dated February 23, almost five months before Mr Trump selected Mr Vance as his running mate.
“These documents were obtained illegally” and “intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” Mr Cheung said.
He pointed to the Microsoft report issued on Friday and its conclusions that “Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on the US presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee”.
In response to Microsoft’s report, Iran’s United Nations mission denied it had plans to interfere or launch cyberattacks in the US presidential election.
Mr Cheung did not immediately respond to questions about the campaign’s interactions with Microsoft on the matter.
Microsoft said on Saturday it had no comment beyond its blog post and Friday report.
The analysis continued: “Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations have been a consistent feature of at least the last three US election cycles.
“Iran’s operations have been notable and distinguishable from Russian campaigns for appearing later in the election season and employing cyberattacks more geared toward election conduct than swaying voters.”
“Recent activity suggests the Iranian regime — along with the Kremlin — may be equally engaged in election 2024,” Microsoft concluded.
Specifically, the report detailed that in June 2024, an Iranian military intelligence unit, Mint Sandstorm, sent a phishing email to an American presidential campaign via the compromised account of a former adviser.
“The phishing email contained a fake forward with a hyperlink that directs traffic through an actor-controlled domain before redirecting to the listed domain,” the report states.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reported hacking or on the Democratic nominee’s cybersecurity protocols.
