WANA (August 15) – Google claims that Iranian hackers were involved in cyberattacks targeting Trump and Harris campaign teams.

 

In a recent report, Google alleged that a hacking group known as “APT42” has been tracking prominent individuals and organizations in Israel and the United States, including government officials and political campaigns.

 

On Tuesday, the campaign team of Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Vice President, announced that it had been targeted by foreign hackers. This announcement came just days after Donald Trump’s campaign, his Republican rival, claimed that it had been hacked by Iran.

 

A Harris campaign official told AFP that in July, the FBI informed their legal and security teams that they had been targeted by a foreign actor.

 

He added, “We have strong cybersecurity measures in place, and we are not aware of any security breaches of our systems resulting from these attempts.”

 

According to AFP, Google’s Threat Analysis Group claims that they continue to observe APT42’s efforts to compromise personal accounts linked to U.S. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump.

 

Google claims that this hacking group operates by gathering information on targets and setting up phishing schemes to trick victims into disclosing login credentials for accounts such as Gmail.

 

Examples provided in the report include posing as a think tank or other credible contacts to lure victims into fake video conference pages, where login credentials are required to participate.

 

Google also claimed to have disrupted APT42’s attempts to hack the Biden and Trump campaigns in 2020.

 

According to the report, in May and June of this year, APT42 targeted the personal email accounts of several individuals associated with Biden or Trump, with Google blocking multiple attempts by APT42 to access those accounts.

 

The report also claimed that the group successfully accessed the personal Gmail account of an influential political consultant.

 

Google stated that this group demonstrated the ability to conduct several simultaneous phishing operations, particularly targeting Israel and the United States, during the spring and summer of this year.

 

The company urged high-risk individuals involved in the upcoming U.S. elections to remain vigilant and take advantage of the advanced protections offered by the internet giant.

 

The United States has previously accused foreign actors of interfering in its presidential elections.

 

U.S. intelligence concluded after the 2016 election that Russia had intervened to support Trump in that race, but Moscow denied these reports.