Washington.- The FBI announced on Monday that it was investigating whether Trump’s campaign had been hacked, days after the former president said Iran had carried out a cyberattack.
The bureau did not specifically name Iran or former President Donald J. Trump but referred to news reports of “a campaign of cyber intrusion.”
The FBI has repeatedly warned about foreign countries interfering in the US election, including by using artificial intelligence to spread disinformation.
He has singled out Iran, China and Russia in particular.
Russia has a long history of trying to sow chaos in US elections, having targeted the Democratic National Committee in 2016.
It’s not known how far-reaching the intrusion was, or whether other campaigns were affected or sensitive materials were compromised, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter.
So far, the Trump campaign has provided no evidence of Iranian meddling.
On Friday, though, Microsoft said a hacking group affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had infiltrated an account of an unnamed former senior adviser to an unnamed presidential campaign.
He added that the group, Mint Sandstorm, used the account to send fake emails to a high-ranking official in order to break into campaign accounts and databases.
Phishing is an unsophisticated but effective way hackers trick people into opening fake emails.
On Saturday, Trump claimed that the hackers had only collected information that was publicly available.
The revelation came after media outlets including Politico reported receiving a series of internal campaign documents from an anonymous account whose only identity was Robert’s name.
Among the records was a lengthy file of documents evaluating the candidacy of Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, Trump’s running mate.
Iran’s effort to infiltrate Trump’s campaign comes after warnings that the country was planning to kill the former president.
In 2020, Trump authorized a drone strike in Iraq that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, commander of the Quds Force, a secret wing of the Revolutionary Guards responsible for external operations.
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