FBI probing if Iran hacked Trump's presidential campaign

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched a probe to ascertain whether Iranian state actors were behind the recent hacking attempt on Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

“We can confirm the FBI is investigating the matter,” the agency said in a statement on Monday (Aug 12).

Additionally, the premier security agency is investigating if the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris campaign was also targeted by the Iranian hackers, according to a CBS report.

Notably, it was Trump's campaign last week that claimed it had been hacked and suggested Iranian actors were involved instealing and distributing internal documents.

The hackers reportedly distributed documents and a dossier on Trump's vice-presidential pick, JD Vance. Apparently, a US media outlet received emails with the campaign material, starting July 22, from a source that refused to identify themselves.

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

"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.

"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.

Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) stated that Trump's campaign was sent a phishing email which led to the hacking attempt. A phishing email is designed to look trustworthy but once a user clicks on the malicious link, the hacker is able to enter their network.

Meanwhile, Trump said the hackers were "only able to gather publicly available information" but raised further concerns about the threat of another Iranian attack.

What did Microsoft say?

The allegations by the Trump campaign surfaced a day after Microsoft in a report revealed thatIran was 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.

(With inputs from agencies)