Alleged Trump hack comes as Iran flexes its digital muscles ahead of US election

WASHINGTON (AP) — With less than three months to go until the U.S. election, Iran is stepping up its efforts to interfere in American politics, U.S. officials and private cybersecurity firms say, with the alleged hacking of Donald Trump's campaign just the latest and most brazen example.

Iran has long been portrayed as an agent of chaos when it comes to cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. In recent months, groups linked to the government in Tehran have covertly encouraged protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, posed as American activists, and created networks of fake news sites and social media accounts designed to spread false and misleading information to the American public.

While Russia and China remain the top cyber threats to the United States, experts and intelligence officials say Iran's increasingly aggressive posture marks a significant escalation in efforts to confuse, deceive and scare American voters ahead of the election.

The pace is likely to continue to accelerate as the election approaches and America's adversaries exploit the internet and advances in artificial intelligence to sow discord and confusion.

“We’re starting to really see this uptick, and it makes sense, 90 days out from the election,” said Sean Minor, a former U.S. Army information warfare expert who now analyzes online threats for the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, which has seen a sharp increase in cyber operations coming from Iran and other countries. “As we get closer, we think these networks will become more aggressive.”

The FBI is investigating the alleged hacking of Trump's campaign as well as attempts to infiltrate the campaign of President Joe Biden, who became vice chair of Kamala Harris' campaign when Biden stepped down. Trump's campaign announced Saturday that someone illegally accessed and retrieved internal documents, which it later distributed to three media outlets. The campaign blamed Iran, pointing to a recent Microsoft report that revealed an attempt by Iranian military intelligence to hack into the systems of one of the presidential campaign teams.

“A lot of people think Iran did this. It probably did,” Trump said Tuesday on Univision before downplaying the value of the leaked information. “I think it's pretty boring information.”

Iran has denied any involvement in the hack and said it has no interest in interfering in U.S. politics.

That denial is disputed by U.S. intelligence officials and private cybersecurity companies that have linked the Iranian government and military to several recent campaigns targeting the United States, saying they reflect Iran's growing capabilities and its growing willingness to use them.

On Wednesday, Google announced that it had discovered a group linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard that it said had tried to infiltrate the personal email accounts of a dozen people linked to Biden and Trump since May.

The company, which contacted law enforcement to report its suspicions, said the group was still targeting people associated with Biden, Trump and Harris. It was unclear whether the network identified by Google was linked to the attempt reported by Trump and Microsoft, or if it was part of a second attempt to infiltrate campaign systems.

Iran is seeking to influence the U.S. election for several reasons, according to intelligence officials and cybersecurity analysts. The country is seeking to sow confusion and increase polarization in the United States while undermining support for Israel. Iran is also seeking to undermine candidates it believes could increase tensions between Washington and Tehran.

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It’s a description that fits Trump, whose administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iranian leaders to vow revenge.

The two leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a joint letter Wednesday warning Tehran and other governments hostile to the United States that attempts to deceive Americans or disrupt elections will not be tolerated.

Any interference in the American democratic process will have consequences, wrote the committee chairman, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the vice chairman.

In 2021, federal authorities charged two Iranian nationals with attempting to interfere in the previous year’s election. As part of that plot, the men wrote emails claiming to be members of the far-right Proud Boys group, in which they threatened Democratic voters with violence.

Last month, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the Iranian government had secretly supported U.S. protests against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza. Groups tied to the Iranian government have also posed as activists online, encouraged campus protests and provided financial support to some protest groups, Haines said.

Recent reports from Microsoft and Recorded Future have also linked the Iranian government to networks of fake news sites and social media accounts impersonating Americans. These networks were discovered before they gained widespread influence, and analysts say they may have been created in advance, to be activated in the weeks immediately before the election.

The final weeks before an election can be the most dangerous for foreign efforts to influence the vote. That’s when voters are paying the most attention to politics, and when false statements about candidates or the vote can do the most damage.

So-called “hack and leak” attacks, such as the one reported by the Trump campaign, involve a hacker retrieving sensitive information from a private network and then leaking it to selected individuals, the media or the public. Such attacks not only expose confidential information, but can also raise questions about cybersecurity and the vulnerability of critical networks and systems.

Authorities say attacks targeting a state or local election office that would expose sensitive information or disrupt election operations would be particularly worrisome for elections. Such an incursion could undermine confidence in voting, even if the information leaked has no value. Experts call the latter possibility a perception hack, in which hackers steal information not because of its value but because they want to show off their capabilities while sowing fear and confusion among their adversaries.

“It may actually pose a greater threat, the spectacle, the marketing that it gives to foreign adversaries, than the hack itself,” said Gavin Wilde, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former National Security Council analyst specializing in cyber threats.

In 2016, Russian hackers infiltrated Hillary Clinton's campaign emails, obtaining and ultimately leaking some of the campaign's most protected information in a hack and leak that upended the campaign in its final weeks.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence have made it easier than ever to create and spread fake news, including realistic videos and audio that allow hackers to impersonate someone and gain access to their organization’s systems. But the alleged hack of the Trump campaign reportedly involved much simpler techniques: Someone gained access to an email account that didn’t have adequate security protections.

While individuals and organizations can take steps to minimize their vulnerability to hacks, nothing can entirely eliminate the risk, Wilde said, or completely reduce the likelihood that foreign adversaries will launch attacks on campaigns.

“The tax we pay for living in a digital society is that these hacks and leaks are inevitable,” he said. Whether you’re a business, a campaign or a government.

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Associated Press writer Ali Swenson contributed to this report from New York.

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