The United States has accused Iran of organizing cyber attacks on both the Kamala Harris and Donald Trump presidential campaigns.
Google reported this month that hackers from a group known as APT42, known to be linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were targeting both Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns. The threat report detailed that the group went after high-profile individuals and organizations in Israel and the United States, including government officials and political campaigns.
The attacks are believed to be targeting individuals with direct access to the respective presidential campaigns, aiming to create more political division across the country. The claims are being made by the FBI and other federal agencies, marking the first time that the US government has assigned public blame on foreign interference in elections.
“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 FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a statement on Monday, as reported by Al Jazeera.
“This includes the recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign, which the [intelligence community] attributes to Iran.”
This comes after the Trump campaign accused Iran of hacking one of its websites earlier in the month, although Trump maintained that they were only able to access “publicly available information”. Now, US intelligence claims that Harris has also been targeted.
How has Iran responded to the cyber attack claims?
Iran issued a statement to the UN that called the allegations “unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing,” demanding the US to publish evidence of its claims.
“As we have previously announced, the Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intention nor the motive to interfere with the US presidential election,” the statement said.
This wouldn’t be the first time a foreign power has sought to interfere in the US elections, with evidence that China has been increasingly turning to AI-powered forms of misinformation to interfere in foreign elections.
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