Trump’s campaign says hackers intercepted internal documents to influence the election

The Trump campaign says its emails and documents were stolen by “external sources” intended to “sow chaos” and influence the 2024 presidential election, multiple media outlets reported over the weekend.

On Saturday, Politico said it had been receiving Trump campaign documents from an anonymous AOL email for months; going only “Robert,” the applicant apparently included a 271-page investigative report detailing the dangers of publicly known Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, as well as a partial website for Florida Senator Marco Rubio. “Robert” claimed to have “Donald Trump’s legal and court documents” and “internal campaign communications,” according to Politico.

“Any media outlet or media outlet that reprints documents or internal communications is doing what America’s enemies want,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told reporters in response to the news. Cheung pointed to an August 9 report from Microsoft, which detailed a June phishing attack that targeted an unnamed “high-level” campaign official using a compromised consultant account.

According to Microsoft, criminals linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sent a phishing email, which included a “fake forward with a link that directs traffic through an actor-controlled domain before redirecting to a listed domain.” The group responsible is known by several names, including Mint Sandstorm and Charming Kitten, Microsoft said. In the past few years, the same group has been accused of targeting the World Health Organization, sending holiday greetings of US officials riddled with malware, and many other attacks.

Microsoft said in a report this week that it is tracking the growth of “high-impact activity by Iranian actors.” The firm added that the Iran-linked campaigns are prominent in Russia’s efforts “to appear later in the election season and use cyber attacks aimed more at electoral behavior than at trying to vote.”

A hacking group known as Guccifer 2.0 accessed the emails of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 in a phishing attack – an attempted phishing attack targeting a specific individual or group. Hackers leaked thousands of DNC emails and documents before the 2016 Democratic National Convention, leading to the resignation of former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Justice Department indictments against 12 Russian military officials.