Donald Trump's presidential campaign hacked, Iranian actors blamed by his team

Donald Trump's presidential campaign on Saturday (Aug 10) claimed that it had been hacked. It further suggested that Iranian actors were involved in stealing and distributing sensitive internal documents.

The hackers reportedly distributed documents and a dossier on Trump's vice-presidential pick, JD Vance.

"These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process," Donald Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.

News outlet Politicosaid it had received emails with the campaign material from a source who refused to identify themselves. The outlet said it received the first set of documents on July 22 via email.

The document was dated Feb. 23, almost five months before Trump selected Vance as his running mate.

"The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House. Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications is doing the bidding of America's enemies and doing exactly what they want," Cheung added.

Watch |US elections 2024: Donald Trump and Kamala Harris say they've agreed to Sept 10 debate

Microsoft points to Iranian threat

The news of the leak comes a day after Microsoft issued a report documenting foreign agents and their attempts to interfere in the US elections in 2024. The findings revealed that Iran is evolving its tactics for the elections which is likely to have global implications.

"A group run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence unit sent a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign” and “another group with assessed links to the IRGC compromised a user account with minimal access permissions at a county-level government,” the report said.

The report added that another Tehran-backed group had been launching "secret" news sites that used AI to lift content from legitimate news sites, and targeted US voters on opposite sides of the political spectrum.

Quizzed about the allegations, Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York said its cyber capabilities were "defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces" and that it had no plans to launch a cyber attack.

"The USpresidential election is an internal matter in whichIrandoes not interfere,"the mission was quoted as saying byReuters.

(With inputs from agencies)