US concludes Iran is behind hacking attempts targeting Trump and Biden-Harris campaigns

(CNN) — The US government has concluded the Iranian government is behind the hack and leak operation targeting Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and also attempted to target the Biden-Harris campaign, the FBI and other US intelligence agencies said Monday.

The FBI in recent days briefed the former president on their preliminary findings, after news organizations reported receiving documents believed to have come from an account belonging to a senior Trump campaign official. Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has said the hackers were unsuccessful in their attempts against the Biden-Harris campaign.

The investigation marks the clearest sign of the efforts by Iran, and other countries, to try to influence the 2024 election, US officials believe.

“The IC is confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the Presidential campaigns of both political parties. Such activity, including thefts and disclosures, are intended to influence the U.S. election process,” the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a statement Monday.

“It is important to note that this approach is not new. Iran and Russia have employed these tactics not only in the United States during this and prior federal election cycles but also in other countries around the world,” the statement added.

Iran’s UN mission on Monday rejected what it called “unsubstantiated” claims that its government was behind the hack and leak operation.

“Such allegations are unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing,” the Iranian Permanent Mission to the United Nations said in a statement to CNN. “The Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intention nor the motive to interfere with the U.S. presidential election. Should the U.S. government genuinely believe in the validity of its claims, it should furnish us with the pertinent evidence—if any—to which we will respond accordingly.”

Iran caught some US officials off-guard with how aggressive it was in trying to meddle in the 2020 election, including by threatening election officials. Four years later, the element of surprise may be gone, but Iran appears no less willing to try to cause chaos during the election, according to current and former US officials.

In the recent hacking operation, investigators believe the suspected Iranian hackers in June breached the personal email account of longtime Trump ally and political operative Roger Stone, and then used that email account to try to break into the account of a senior Trump campaign official as part of a persistent effort to access campaign networks, CNN previously reported.

In addition to the hack, an AOL account using the pseudonymous name “Robert” has leaked internal Trump campaign documents to media outlets, Politico first reported. One of those documents was a research file on Trump’s vice presidential running mate JD Vance, Politico reported.

The FBI has studied email records provided by Microsoft, Google and AOL and has spoken to Trump campaign personnel to determine who was responsible for the hack and who was responsible for the leak, the sources said.

Attribution to the hack was fairly straightforward: The hackers’ techniques matched those of a notorious group affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Some US officials were uncertain that the same IRGC-backed group that did the hacking had leaked the documents, according to two sources familiar with the matter, because the group is not known for leaks. However, investigators studying the AOL account have been able to link its digital infrastructure to the same Iranian hacking group, one of the sources said.

A person familiar with the email exchanges between “Robert” and reporters said that whoever was behind the account spoke halting English and pressured a reporter to publish more of the documents.

The Iranian hackers have also targeted the email accounts of current US officials and people associated with Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden, researchers at Google said last week.

The FBI has briefed Trump that all signs point to Iran’s responsibility for the hacking effort, and that the hackers were able to breach Stone’s email accounts, sources familiar with the matter said. Trump said publicly last week that the FBI was looking into the hack and that “it looks like it’s Iran.”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

CNN’s Artemis Moshtaghian contributed to this report.

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