Iran-linked hackers targeted the campaign headquarters of both current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Google has confirmed.
On Wednesday, August 14, Google’s Threat Analysis Group reported that the APT42 hacker group targeted the personal email accounts of about a dozen individuals associated with Biden and Trump, the Republican Party’s nominee in this November’s election.
Google’s report also stated that APT42 “successfully accessed the personal Gmail account of a veteran political advisor,” but the name of the advisor was not disclosed.
On Tuesday, it was reported that the personal email account of Roger Stone, a supporter of Donald Trump, was possibly accessed by hackers linked to the Iranian government.
According to Google, the APT42 hacker group is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and consistently targets high-profile users in Israel and the United States.
Based on a chart included in Google’s report, this hacking group has even targeted users inside Iran to gain access to their computer systems.
Current and former government officials, political campaigns, diplomats, think tank members, as well as NGOs and academic institutions involved in foreign policy discussions, have all been targeted by this IRGC-linked group.
According to Google, in the past six months, about 60% of APT42’s known geographic targets were focused on the U.S. and Israel, indicating this group’s aggressive and multifaceted efforts to rapidly shift its operational focus in support of the Iranian regime’s political and military priorities.
According to the report, the APT42 hacker group had also previously attempted to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
According to Politico, early Wednesday, Trump, in his first public comment on the incident, accused the Iranian regime of hacking his campaign and praised the FBI’s investigation into the hack.
On the same day, The Washington Post reported that the FBI stated it is also investigating suspicious attempts attributed to the Iranian regime to hack the Biden-Harris campaign and a Trump aide.
The Washington Post, citing several informed sources, reported that FBI agents investigating the efforts of Tehran-linked hackers to target the Trump, Biden, and Harris campaigns have found evidence indicating that one of the targets of these hackers was Susie Wiles, a senior advisor to Trump.
