Harris campaign reveals it was targeted by ‘foreign actor’ after Trump claims his team was hacked by Iran
Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign revealed it was the target of a “foreign actor influence operation,” just days after Donald Trump’s campaign blamed Iran for an apparent hacking attempt following a wad of documents being leaked to reporters.
The vice-president’s team was notified of a purported breach by the FBI last month and continues to liaise with authorities, an anonymous campaign official revealed on Tuesday.
“We have robust cybersecurity measures in place, and are not aware of any security breaches of our systems resulting from those efforts,” they told Reuters.
The FBI said it was investigating efforts to hack the then Biden-Harris campaign prior to the president’s abrupt departure from the Democratic ticket last month, according to The Washington Post.
The bureau declined to provide further information after a request by The Independent.
Spear-phishing emails were reportedly sent to three Biden-Harris aides in an attempt to gain access to wider email communication.
It comes after the FBI confirmed to The Independent that it launched an investigation when Trump’s campaign team claimed it had been hacked by a group believed to be connected with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
On Friday, Microsoft announced it believed that the Iranian intelligence agency sent a phishing email to “a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from the compromised email account of a former senior advisor.”
That email belongs to one of Trump’s long-time allies and political strategists: Roger Stone.
The fervent Republican operative was convicted for lying to Congress in 2019 about efforts to dig up dirt about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign — before later being pardoned by then-president Trump.