U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies are pointing the finger at Iran and Russia for what they say are ongoing attempts to conduct “cyber operations” including phishing attacks against U.S. presidential campaigns and people associated with them.
In a joint statement late Monday, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) singled out Iran as the perpetrator of recent actions to compromise the campaign of former President Trump.
According to news reports earlier this month, those actions have included hacking into the email account of Republican operative Roger Stone as part of a larger aim to access Trump campaign records.
“We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting Presidential campaigns,” the three Federal agencies said. “This includes the recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign, which the IC [intelligence community] attributes to Iran.”
The hacking effort is not excusive to targeting the Trump campaign. The agencies said they are “confident” that Iran has used social engineering and other efforts to get access to people “with direct access to the Presidential campaigns of both political parties.”
“Such activity, including thefts and disclosures, are intended to influence the U.S. election process,” said the DNI, FBI, and CISA.
Motivating Iran, the agencies said, is a desire to “complicate the ability of any U.S. administration to pursue a foreign policy at odds with Iran’s interests.”
The three agencies also roped Russia into the picture, saying that both “Iran and Russia have employed these tactics not only in the United States during this and prior federal election cycles but also in other countries around the world.”
Late last month, the DNI identified Russia, Iran, and China as active or potential threats to U.S. election processes. And earlier this month, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said that the biggest threats to the smooth functioning of the November elections stem from potential misuse of artificial intelligence technologies along with ongoing efforts by foreign adversaries to sow distrust and confusion about election processes.
In their announcement on Monday, the three agencies said that the FBI is acting as the government’s lead agency on threat response and pledged that the bureau “will continue to investigate and gather information in order to pursue and disrupt the threat actors responsible.”
“We will not tolerate foreign efforts to influence or interfere with our elections, including the targeting of American political campaigns,” the agencies said.
The three agencies also reminded that some of the basic cyber hygiene steps will help to improve resilience against attacks.
“Using strong passwords and only official email accounts for official business, updating software, avoiding clicking on links or opening attachments from suspicious emails before confirming their authenticity with the sender, and turning on multi-factor authentication will drastically improve online security and safety,” they said.
