Iran Behind Hack Targeting Trump Campaign: US Intelligence Agencies

A seal reading "Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation" is displayed on the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building in Washington on Aug. 9, 2022. Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. officials have concluded that the Iranian regime was behind an attempted hacking operation targeting former President Donald Trump’s campaign.

In a joint statement on Aug. 19, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced, “The IC is confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the Presidential campaigns of both political parties.”

The FBI on Aug. 12 had announced that it was investigating reports that hackers potentially linked with Iran had targeted the Trump campaign.

According to the statement, Iranian hackers appear to have attempted to hack both Trump’s campaign and the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris.

The agencies placed the attempted hack into the context of “increasingly aggressive Iranian activity” during the current election cycle, saying “this approach [by Iran] is not new.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an intelligence community assessment last month, concluding that Iranian groups are working to fuel distrust toward U.S. institutions and increase social discord. The assessment states that Iranian groups use “vast webs of online personas and propaganda mills to spread disinformation and have notably been active in exacerbating tensions over the Israel–Gaza conflict.”

The intelligence community report further states that Tehran is “working to influence the presidential election, probably because Iranian leaders want to avoid an outcome they perceive would increase tensions with the United States.”

The Iranian mission to the United Nations has denied allegations of Tehran’s involvement in a cyber breach targeting the Trump campaign.

The Iranian mission insists that Tehran is instead the target of cyberattacks. The mission said Tehran uses its cyber capabilities for defense and for directing proportionate responses to the attacks that Iran faces.

In the Aug. 19 statement, intelligence officials vowed continued vigilance in identifying and countering such threats.

“Protecting the integrity of our elections from foreign influence or interference is our priority,” the statement said.

The recent attempted breach was first identified in an Aug. 9 report from the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC).

That report found that an Iranian group connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, called “Mint Sandstorm,” sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from a compromised email account belonging to a former senior campaign adviser.

The MTAC report stated that the same group was also responsible for an attempted hack during the 2020 election, including a failed effort to breach the account of an unidentified former presidential candidate.

In the wake of the report, Trump’s 2024 campaign team acknowledged its validity, saying that they had been hacked and had campaign documents stolen.

Several of these documents were later transmitted to Politico by an anonymous figure who dubbed himself “Robert,” the news outlet said in a report.

They included a 271-page research dossier drafted while Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) was still being vetted for the No. 2 job, as well as similar, albeit incomplete, materials related to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), another finalist for the job.

The campaign breach comes in the wake of reports that, ahead of the failed July 13 attempt on Trump’s life, Iran had independently hatched a plot to assassinate the former president.