Hackers obtain internal documents from Trump’s presidential election campaign

A Trump campaign spokesperson confirmed that “foreign sources hostile to the United States” have hacked some of its internal communications.

Politico was the first news outlet to break this story. The site says it began receiving emails from an anonymous account on July 22, signed by ‘Robert’. It appeared to be internal documents from a senior official of Trump’s campaign team.

One of the documents was titled ‘Potential vulnerabilities’ and discussed past statements of Trump’s running mate Senator JD Vance. Another document deliberated on Senator Marco Rubio, one of the finalists for the vice presidential nomination.

When Politico askes how the source got hold of these documents, he answered: “I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from. Any answer to this question, will compromise me and also legally restricts you from publishing them.”

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign team, acknowledges the breach took place. “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,” he said in a response.

Referring to Microsoft’s recent Threat Intelligence Report on the U.S. presidential election, Cheung suspects Iranian hackers are directly responsible for the incident.

The Redmond-based tech company stated that an Iranian hacking group was sending “spear phishing emails to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign” in June, without disclosing the name of the candidate. “It coincides with the close timing of president Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee,” the spokesperson says.

Lastly, Cheung stated that “the Iranians know that president Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in the first four years in the White House”.

The scope of the hack is unclear, but could possibly lead to a major security breach for Trump’s campaign.

Back in 2016, officials of the Democratic Party got hacked ahead of the presidential election. Some of the leaked emails and documents found their way to WikiLeaks. Security experts blamed Russia for the hack, but never found conclusive evidence to substantiate their claims.