WASHINGTON, Aug 20, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Iran was behind a recent hack targeting
Donald Trump's presidential campaign, US security agencies said on Monday,
accusing Tehran of seeking to influence the 2024 election.

The statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
(ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) confirmed the Trump campaign claim from
earlier this month that it had been targeted, potentially by Iran.

"We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this
election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the
American public and cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns," the
security agencies said.

"This includes the recently reported activities to compromise former
President Trump's campaign, which the (intelligence community) attributes to
Iran," they said.

The United States goes to the polls on November 5, with both Trump's and
rival Kamala Harris's campaigns saying they had been targeted by cyber
attacks in recent weeks. US-based tech companies have also said they detected
such attacks.

The US intelligence community was "confident" that Iran had used social
engineering and other methods to target individuals in both political
campaigns, and that the attempts were "intended to influence the US election
process," Monday's statement said.

Trump's campaign said on August 10 that it had been hacked, blaming "foreign
sources" for distributing internal communications and a dossier on running
mate J.D. Vance.

"These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the
United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos
throughout our Democratic process," Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung
said in a statement.

Trump's campaign implied Iran was behind the move as news outlet Politico
reported it had received emails with the campaign material from a source who
refused to identify themselves.

- Harris campaign targeted -

Cheung cited a report from Microsoft this week that said Iranian hackers
"sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a
presidential campaign."

The materials received by Politico included research on vetting Vance,
Trump's vice presidential pick.

In 2016, a hack of Democratic National Committee emails -- blamed on Russians
-- exposed internal party communications, including about candidate Hillary
Clinton.

Trump, who would go on to win the election, was criticized for encouraging
the hack.

Democratic presidential candidate Harris's campaign said on August 13 that
it, too, had been targeted by foreign hackers, but did not give an indication
of which country was believed to be behind the attempt.

"In July, the campaign legal and security teams were notified by the FBI that
we were targeted by a foreign actor influence operation," a Harris campaign
official told AFP.

Google said this month that hackers backed by Iran were targeting the
Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns.

A hacker group known as APT42 linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps went after high-profile individuals and organizations in Israel and the
United States, including government officials and political campaigns,
according to a threat report released by Google.

Google's threat analysis group continues to see unsuccessful attempts from
APT42 to compromise personal accounts of individuals affiliated with Biden,
Harris and Trump, the report said.