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 .