U.S. intelligence officials released a statement Monday confirming that Iran was behind hacking attempts of email accounts affiliated with staff for the presidential campaigns of President Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The hackers who were able to get information from the Trump campaign tried to release some of the information through news outlets like Politico but were unsuccessful in getting the contents of those emails published. The Biden campaign was not infiltrated, though details about why Iran failed in those attempts are not yet clear.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) all released a joint statement on the hacking attempts, saying Iran “seeks to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions” and has a “longstanding interest in exploiting societal tensions” within the U.S.
“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 statement reads.
The Trump campaign had previously pointed the finger at Iranian hackers, but this is the first time the culprit has been named by U.S. officials. And while the statement said the intent was to “influence the U.S. election process,” details are still scarce.
It’s generally believed that Iran has sought to harm former president Trump’s campaign as retaliation for the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian general with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in a drone strike at the Baghdad International Airport in Iraq. Trump antagonized Iran repeatedly during his four years in office, including by backing out of a peace deal in 2018 that ultimately saw the country continue its development of nuclear weapons. Iran doesn’t currently have a nuke, but U.S. news reports always make it sound like they’re continually on the cusp of building one.
The FBI has been the lead agency in the response to the hacking attempts and continues to gather data, according to the statement.
“We will not tolerate foreign efforts to influence or interfere with our elections, including the targeting of American political campaigns,” the agencies said Monday. “As an interagency we are working closely with our public and private sector partners to share information, bolster security, and identify and disrupt any threats.”
The statement urged all Americans to use strong passwords and only official email accounts for official business. The agencies also stressed how important it was to continually update software and to avoid clicking on links or attachments from suspicious emails.
