Google: Overseas hackers targeting Trump, Biden campaigns
June 4, 2020
Chinese and Iranian hackers recently targeted the email accounts of staffers for both presidential campaigns, a senior Google official announced Thursday.
There was "no sign of compromise" of either the Donald Trump or Joe Biden campaigns, Shane Huntley, the head of Google’s Threat Analysis Group, disclosed on Twitter. He said the company had detected Chinese-based hackers attempting to use malicious emails to breach the accounts of Biden campaign staffers, while hackers in Iran attempted the same with Trump's campaign.
"We sent users our govt attack warning and we referred to fed law enforcement," Huntley wrote.
The revelation is the latest instance of the 2020 campaigns, and people associated with them, coming under digital attack.
In October, Microsoft announced that hackers linked to the Iranian government had targeted the campaign of at least one 2020 presidential contender. It was later reported that hackers tried to infiltrate the Trump reelection effort, which the campaign denied.
And in January, the threat intelligence company Area1 said Russian hackers had targeted the Ukrainian gas company where Biden’s son, Hunter, once served on the board.
Neither the Trump or Biden campaigns immediately responded to requests for comment, nor did the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Senior national security and intelligence officials have long warned that the upcoming election will be targeted not just by Russian hackers, who stole and disclosed a wealth of documents from Hillary Clinton's campaign staff and the Democratic Party, but could also face interference by Iran and China.
Source: https://www.politico.com/
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