How lessons learned from the 2016 campaign led US officials to be more open about Iran hack

WASHINGTON (AP) — The 2016 presidential campaign was entering its final months and seemingly all of Washington was abuzz with talk about how Russian hackers had penetrated the email accounts of Democrats, triggering the release of internal communications that seemed designed to boost Donald Trump’s campaign and hurt Hillary Clinton’s.

Yet there was a notable exception: The officials investigating the hacks were silent.

When they finally issued a statement, one month before the election, it was just three paragraphs and did little more than confirm what had been publicly suspected — that there had been a brazen Russian effort to interfere in the vote.

This year, there was another foreign hack, but the response was decidedly different. U.S. security officials acted more swiftly to name the culprit, detailing their findings and blaming a foreign adversary — this time, Iran — just over a week after Trump’s campaign revealed the attack.

They accused Iranian hackers of targeting the presidential campaigns of both major parties as part of a broader attempt to sow discord in the American political process.

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