The Justice Department has filed charges against three Iranian hackers accused of disrupting Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. The hackers, members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, allegedly targeted the election by using fake email accounts to deceive campaign officials and steal internal documents. These documents were then leaked to the media and the Joe Biden campaign.
The charges, unsealed on Friday, come amid heightened concerns about foreign interference in U.S. elections. Attorney General Merrick Garland stated that the hackers aimed to undermine Trump’s campaign and that the Justice Department is seeing increasingly aggressive Iranian cyber activity during this election cycle.
The accused hackers, identified as Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yasar Balaghi, face charges including wire fraud, identity theft, and computer fraud. The U.S. Treasury Department has also imposed sanctions on the three men and other Revolutionary Guard members.
While the hackers are currently in Iran, out of U.S. law enforcement’s reach, Garland emphasized the Justice Department’s commitment to pursuing them indefinitely.
This case is not isolated. Trump’s campaign confirmed a security breach in August, believed to be orchestrated by foreign entities hostile to the U.S. This breach included the theft of internal documents, which were later leaked to the media.
Meta Platforms Inc. also thwarted an attempt by Iranian hackers to target both Trump and Biden’s campaigns via WhatsApp accounts linked to the hacking group APT42. This group has been identified by tech giants like Google as an “Iranian state-sponsored cyber espionage actor.”
Adding to these concerns, U.S. intelligence agencies revealed that Iran attempted to share hacked Trump campaign data with Biden’s team. According to a joint statement by the FBI, ODNI, and CISA, Iranian cyber actors sent unsolicited emails containing stolen Trump campaign material to individuals associated with Biden’s campaign.
Further complicating the situation, OpenAI uncovered and dismantled a covert Iranian influence operation using ChatGPT to manipulate public opinion during the 2024 elections. The operation, named Storm-2035, produced content on U.S. politics and the presidential election, shared via social media and websites posing as news outlets.
The charges against the Iranian hackers highlight the growing challenge of combating foreign interference in U.S. elections. The Justice Department’s pursuit of these individuals emphasizes the commitment to protecting the integrity of the democratic process in the face of increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.
