Google said Wednesday that an alleged Iranian hacking operation aimed at US presidential campaigns is ongoing and more wide-ranging than previously known as the hackers continue to target the email accounts of current US officials and people associated with Vice President Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
In May and June, a hacking group linked with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted the personal email accounts of about a dozen people associated with Biden and Trump, including current government officials, Google researchers said in a blog post. And even today, Google is seeing unsuccessful attempts by the Iranian hackers to log into the accounts of people associated with Biden, Harris, Trump and both presidential campaigns.
The Google research adds to existing evidence of an aggressive effort by Iran to collect intelligence related to the 2024 presidential campaign. CNN and other outlets reported this week that the suspected Iranian hackers had breached the personal email account of longtime Republican operative Roger Stone in an effort to infiltrate the Trump campaign.
The Iranian hackers successfully broke into the personal Gmail account of “a high-profile political consultant,” Google said. A company spokesperson declined to comment when asked if this political consultant was Stone or someone else. Google passed on information about the hacking activity to law enforcement in early July and is continuing to cooperate, the company said.
Google has told both campaigns that it is “seeing heightened malicious activity originating from foreign state actors” and has stressed to the campaigns “the importance of enhanced account security protections on personal email accounts.”
This story is breaking and will be updated.
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