Headline Roundup • August 12th, 2024
Trump Campaign Says It Was Hacked by Iran
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign claimed over the weekend that its campaign’s emails had been hacked and blamed Iran for the breach.
Microsoft Report: On Thursday, Microsoft released a report that said Iran was ramping up its efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election. In the report, Microsoft claimed Iran sent a phishing email in June and “unsuccessfully attempted to log into an account belonging to a former presidential candidate,” whom the company had since notified.
Politico Report: On Saturday, Politico (Lean Left bias) published a report that claimed since July 22, it had been receiving emails from an anonymous AOL account with documents and communications from inside Trump’s campaign. Politico said two people familiar with them verified the documents as authentic.
For Context: Last week, a Pakistani national with ties to Iran was charged with plotting to assassinate high-ranking U.S. officials, potentially including Trump.
How The Media Covered It: The story was widely covered across the spectrum, with most outlets basing coverage on Microsoft and Politico’s reports.
Featured Coverage of this Story
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Rick Bowmer/AP
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign said Saturday that some of its internal communications had been hacked.
The acknowledgment came after POLITICO began receiving emails from an anonymous account with documents from inside Trump’s operation.
The campaign blamed “foreign sources hostile to the United States,” citing a Microsoft report on Friday that Iranian hackers “sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign.” Microsoft did not identify the campaign targeted by the email and declined to comment Saturday. POLITICO has not independently verified the identity of the...
Rob Lever—AFP
A hacking group linked to the Iranian government tried to breach the email accounts of presidential campaign staffers as part of a wider effort to gather intelligence ahead of the US election, Microsoft Corp. said Friday.
Attackers connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in June used a compromised email address from a former political adviser to try phishing another high-ranking presidential campaign official, according to findings from Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center. That group, which Microsoft calls Mint Sandstorm, also unsuccessfully attempted to log in to the account of a former presidential candidate. The report didn’t identify the individual targets...
AP
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign said Saturday that it had been hacked and blamed Iran for breaking into its data, days after Microsoft revealed the terror-backing nation has been ramping up online activity in an attempt to influence the US election.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung made the announcement following report from Politico that said the outlet had received anonymous emails that included documents from inside Trump’s campaign operation.
The campaign cited the report from Microsoft on Friday that said a presidential campaign had been targeted with an email phishing attack in June, according...
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