Thanks to a Microsoft report from earlier this year, we already knew that Iranian hackers had been working to steal information from Trump’s campaign. What we didn’t know was what the hackers were going to do with the info they stole. Well, according to the Trump campaign and reports from the FBI, CISA, and ODNI, the hackers sent the stolen data to members of Biden’s campaign. However, those who received the emails thought they were spam or phishing attempts and ignored them.
FBI says Iranian hackers tried to give info to Biden campaign and were ignored
The Trump campaign announced it had been hacked earlier this year. It’s believed the information sent to Politico revealing Marco Rubio as one of his possible vice presidential picks came from this hack. In the announcement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung referenced a Microsoft report that stated Iranian hackers sent phishing emails to a high-ranking presidential campaign official but stopped short of saying Iran was definitively behind the hack.
According to CNN, Iran also sent stolen information from the Trump campaign to several people working on Joe Biden’s campaign before he dropped out of the race. The unsolicited emails contained excerpts taken from stolen material that was intended to entice the individuals to respond. However, the FBI, Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency said in a joint statement that no targeted individuals replied to the emails because they thought they were spam or phishing attempts.
However, despite assurances from the intelligence community and a Harris campaign official stating, “the material was not used,” the Trump campaign isn’t convinced. A Trump spokesman said Harris and Biden personally “must come clean on whether they used the hacked material.”
While Iran-backed hackers definitely attempted to send hacked information to Biden campaign workers, their motive is unclear. They may have tried to assist the Biden campaign or coax workers into asking for the information to blackmail them.
According to ABC News, Iran’s Mission to the United Nations stated that the FBI, ODNI, and CISA findings were “fundamentally unfounded and wholly inadmissible” and that “The Islamic Republic of Iran does not engage in the internal uproars or electoral controversies of the United States.”
