The FBI is investigating an alleged Trump campaign hack; sources say the agency is probing suspected hacking attempts by Iran targeting Trump, Biden, and Harris
Is Harris pulling ahead of Trump? Martin Matishak / The Record : FBI says it is investigating purported Trump campaign hack Victor Nava / New York Post : FBI investigating alleged hack of Trump campaign, JD Vance vetting documents Emma Roth / The Verge : Trump campaign reportedly hacked by Iranian government Cynthia B Brumfield / Metacurity : Trump Campaign Claims Iranian Hackers Stole Documents Joe Fay / The Stack : Trump blames Tehran for email hack, as Microsoft warns of Iran, Russia and China election attacks X: Dustin Volz / @dnvolz : The FBI now says it is investigating “the matter” concerning the cyber intrusion of the Trump campaign. Previously the FBI only said that it was aware of media reporting about the hack on Saturday, which appeared to be the first time law enforcement became aware of it. Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias : It would be interesting to read these emails! Zachary Cohen / @zcohencnn : The FBI & other investigators probing apparent hack-and-leak of Trump campaign documents, which Donald Trump has blamed on Iran, suspect that the hackers were able to compromise personal email account of someone associated w/ campaign, 2 sources told CNN. https://www.cnn.com/... Jack Jenkins / @jackmjenkins : Looks like folks were trying to hack the Harris-Walz campaign as well — except unlike 2016, this time it appears Democrats didn't, I guess, click the sketchy link. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Ellen Nakashima / @nakashimae : FBI probing alleged Iran hack attempts targeting Trump, Biden camps. When the Trump campaign initially concluded it'd been hacked, it did not alert the FBI—partially because of the campaign's distrust in the agency, campaign advisors told The Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Dan Friedman / @dfriedman33 : Weird because Stone's usually so careful. Ken Dilanian / @kendilaniannbc : New: The FBI says it is conducting a criminal investigation of what the Trump campaign is characterizing as a hack of its computer networks by Iran. FBI officials have not publicly characterized what happened. Zachary Cohen / @zcohencnn : UPDATE: FBI & other investigators probing apparent hack-and-leak of Trump campaign documents, which Donald Trump has blamed on Iran, suspect hackers were able to compromise the personal email account of longtime Republican & Trump operative ROGER STONE — @snlyngaas & @KristenhCNNBret Baier / @bretbaier : We can now report that the FBI is investigating cyber hacking attempts by Iran against both the Trump and Harris campaigns. H/t Fox Doj team. Forums: r/KnowledgeFight : Genuinely curious if this is going to come up on the show r/inthenews : Suspected Iranian hackers breached Roger Stone's personal email as part of effort to target Trump campaign, sources say | CNN Politics r/ParlerWatch : Suspected Iranian hackers breached Roger Stone's personal email as part of effort to target Trump campaign, sources say r/centrist : Suspected Iranian hackers breached Roger Stone's personal email as part of effort to target Trump campaign, sources say r/law : Suspected Iranian hackers breached Roger Stone's personal email as part of effort to target Trump campaign, sources say | CNN Politics r/politics : Suspected Iranian hackers breached Roger Stone's personal email as part of effort to target Trump campaign, sources say See also Mediagazer
Washington Post
Context & Ripple Effects
The inquiry follows the Trump campaign’s report that internal communications had been compromised, with the campaign citing a Microsoft account of spear-phishing activity in its initial hack disclosure. The reported targeting of Trump, Biden and Harris puts the incident in a broader campaign-security frame rather than a dispute involving one operation alone.
The FBI opens a federal inquiry into the alleged intrusion, while the Trump campaign, Biden campaign and Harris campaign face heightened scrutiny of email, document-sharing and vetting workflows.
Suspected Iranian activity becomes an investigative lead rather than an established public finding at this stage; the reported targets and any compromised intermediaries may be drawn into evidence collection.
Second-order effects
Campaigns and their technology providers have reason to tighten phishing defenses and access controls, because attempts reportedly extended across rival presidential operations rather than targeting only one candidate.
The possibility that stolen material could be distributed shifts the risk from account compromise alone to information operations, increasing pressure on campaigns to coordinate incident reporting and responses with federal agencies.
Third-order effects
The episode reinforces that election cyber defense must cover both intrusion prevention and the downstream handling of leaked material; neither layer alone contains the political impact of a compromise.
If repeated cross-campaign targeting persists, federal attribution and incident-response channels could become a more routine part of campaign operations, despite the trust friction evident in the campaign’s initial reluctance to contact the FBI.
The trend: Foreign election interference is increasingly combining credential theft, targeting of campaign ecosystems and potential dissemination of stolen information into a single influence operation.
The FBI now says it is investigating “the matter” concerning the cyber intrusion of the Trump campaign. Previously the FBI only said that it was aware of media reporting about the hack on Saturday, which appeared to be the first time law enforcement became aware of it.
The FBI & other investigators probing apparent hack-and-leak of Trump campaign documents, which Donald Trump has blamed on Iran, suspect that the hackers were able to compromise personal email account of someone associated w/ campaign, 2 sources told CNN. https://www.cnn.com/...
Looks like folks were trying to hack the Harris-Walz campaign as well — except unlike 2016, this time it appears Democrats didn't, I guess, click the sketchy link. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
FBI probing alleged Iran hack attempts targeting Trump, Biden camps. When the Trump campaign initially concluded it'd been hacked, it did not alert the FBI—partially because of the campaign's distrust in the agency, campaign advisors told The Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/…
New: The FBI says it is conducting a criminal investigation of what the Trump campaign is characterizing as a hack of its computer networks by Iran. FBI officials have not publicly characterized what happened.
UPDATE: FBI & other investigators probing apparent hack-and-leak of Trump campaign documents, which Donald Trump has blamed on Iran, suspect hackers were able to compromise the personal email account of longtime Republican & Trump operative ROGER STONE — @snlyngaas & @KristenhCNN
“the questions surrounding the origins of the documents and how they came to our attention were more newsworthy than the material that was in those documents” https://apnews.com/...
Seriously the double standard here is incredible. For all the yapping on interviews, it would be great for people making these decisions to be accountable to the public. Do they now admit they were wrong in 2016 or is the rule hacked materials are only used when it hurts Dems?
Microsoft identified increased Iranian cyber activity re US election: - Targeting high-ranking US campaign official - Making websites that pose as US news sites - Impersonating US activists - Compromising of gov't employee account in a swing state https://www.voanews.com/...
“Harvesting legitimate news content and arbitrarily recombining it” is the only technical feature of LLMs and generative ML, and “abstracting away nefariousness” is the whole of OpenAI's business model. Remember that as this trickles into the news. https://blogs.microsoft.com/ ..…
Notable Microsoft report detailing specific ways that Iran is interfering in the 2024 US election. Russia and China included as well. https://cdn-dynmedia-1.microsoft.com/ ...
“Iran has demonstrated the most eagerness to disrupt the election, despite being mired in regional confrontations... attempting now to essentially re-create the successes of Russia's 2016 interference ops, albeit crudely.” @dnvolz, @alexbward, @bobmcmillan https://www.wsj.com/...
New: Iran has emerged as the most aggressive foreign threat to the U.S. presidential election, linked to a (so far) failed hack-and-leak operation, the breach of a county election official, vast online influence efforts and an assassination attempt. https://www.wsj.com/...
Microsoft this morning published a report on foreign actors' attempts to interfere in the U.S. election, with Iran taking the spotlight as it targets campaigns and local governments, runs fake news websites, and lays groundwork to incite violence. https://cdn-dynmedia-1.microsoft…
Really hope more people take a look at reports like this from @microsoft on foreign influence campaigns. It seems to me that the main objective is to stoke flames and tensions, so the best way to combat these efforts is to be civil in our disagreements. https://blogs.microsoft.co…
According to Microsoft, Iran is launching fake news websites in the US to influence the November election. No doubt similar efforts have/are being made here. Via Semafor: [image]