U.S. intelligence businesses on Monday pointed fingers at Iran over the alleged hacking of former President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s election marketing campaign.
“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,” mentioned a joint assertion from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the U.S. Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI.
This included the lately reported actions to compromise Trump’s marketing campaign, the assertion mentioned.
It is the primary time the U.S. authorities has attributed duty for the cyberattack that Trump had beforehand linked to Tehran.
“Iran seeks to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions,” the assertion mentioned.
“Iran has furthermore demonstrated a longstanding interest in exploiting societal tensions through various means, including through the use of cyber operations to attempt to gain access to sensitive information related to U.S. elections.”
It was “important to note that this approach is not new,” the assertion added.
“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.”
“We will not tolerate foreign efforts to influence or interfere with our elections, including the targeting of American political campaigns.”
In a report earlier this month, Google attributed the assaults to a bunch of cybercriminals with shut ties to Iran.
The tech large mentioned the APT42 hacker group, linked to Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, accessed electronic mail accounts belonging to round a dozen Democratic and Republican election marketing campaign workers in May and June.
Source: www.dailysabah.com