Iranian hackers charged with breach of Trump campaign records

Indictment alleges members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard obtained election team’s emails and tried to leak them to the news media.

Attorney-General Merrick Garland said Iran’s cyber activities have grown increasingly aggressive ahead of the 2024 election. Picture: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP

The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges Friday against three Iranian operatives suspected of hacking Donald Trump’s campaign and disseminating stolen information to the media in an effort to undermine the former president’s election prospects.

In a 37-page indictment, prosecutors alleged three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps engaged in a wide-ranging operation that targeted current and former US government officials. Prosecutors said that in May operatives began targeting the personal accounts of Trump campaign officials – and found success.

After accessing emails and other campaign documents, the three sought to weaponise the materials by leaking them to the news media, the indictment said. It named the alleged hackers as Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi, charging them in Washington, D.C., federal court with crimes including providing material support to a foreign terrorist organisation.

Attorney-General Merrick Garland said Iran’s cyber activities have grown increasingly aggressive ahead of the 2024 election, in what he called “brazen efforts to stoke discord” and erode confidence in the electoral process.

The Iranian operatives created email accounts that impersonated publicly known figures, with the aim of tricking recipients into believing they were communicating with a trusted source, the indictment said. The so-called phishing emails included links or attachments that, if opened, provided access to the recipients’ accounts.

Iran’s hack of the Trump campaign came to light in August, when Politico reported the breach. An anonymous figure going by the name “Robert” sent the stolen campaign files to the media outlet in a failed bid to have them published.

The material included opposition research on Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, that was largely gleaned from public information. Campaigns commonly assemble such information when vetting someone for the ticket.

Other media organisations also said they had been contacted by “Robert,” but none published the material they received. The hackers also sent some material to individuals associated with the Biden-Harris campaign, which didn’t engage with it.

Russia, which is seeking to again support Trump’s candidacy, remains the top concern for US spy agencies on alert for foreign influence in the election. But Iran has emerged as a chief antagonist as well. It has undertaken an array of aggressive – though largely unsophisticated – efforts to harm Trump’s candidacy.

Prosecutors secured their indictment of the Iranian hackers in a matter of weeks, an unusually fast turnaround for nation-state cybercrime cases that once could take years due to the technical nature of the investigations and diplomatic considerations.

US intelligence officials say that while Moscow favours Trump’s stated scepticism of the Ukraine war effort, Tehran opposes his return to the White House.

For years, officials have warned about ongoing attempts by Iran to retaliate for the January 2020 US drone strike Trump ordered that killed Qassem Soleimani, leader of Iran’s Quds Force, the group responsible for Iran’s covert military operations abroad.

The Biden administration enhanced Trump’s security after determining there was an increased threat from Iran against the former president. A Pakistani man with ties to Iran was charged earlier this year with plotting assassinations of Trump and other politicians.

The charges unsealed Friday mark US officials’ latest effort to call out foreign election influence campaigns ahead of the November vote. Earlier this month, the Justice Department brought charges against two Russian nationals, accusing them of bankrolling a conservative US media start-up as part of a plot to launder pro-Russian propaganda to American audiences.

Dow Jones Newswires