The campaign for Donald Trump announced on Saturday that it had been
targeted by a cyberattack, accusing “foreign entities” of
disseminating internal communications and a dossier concerning his running
mate, JD Vance. The campaign suggested that Iran might be responsible for the
breach, following a report from Politico stating that they had received emails
containing campaign materials from an anonymous source.
A statement from Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung highlighted that
the documents had been illegally obtained from foreign actors hostile to the
U.S., with the intent of disrupting the 2024 election and undermining the
democratic process. This comes on the heels of a recent Microsoft report
indicating that Iranian hackers had targeted a senior official in a U.S. The
spear-phishing email was used to target the presidential campaign in June.
The documents provided to Politico reportedly included vetting research on
Vance, who is Trump’s vice-presidential choice. This incident draws parallels
to the 2016 breach of Democratic National Committee emails, which was
attributed to Russian hackers and revealed internal party communications about
candidate Hillary Clinton. Trump, who eventually won that election, faced
criticism for appearing to encourage the hack.
