{"id":1246,"date":"2024-09-27T16:32:28","date_gmt":"2024-09-27T16:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/?p=1246"},"modified":"2024-09-30T03:09:44","modified_gmt":"2024-09-30T03:09:44","slug":"iranian-operatives-charged-in-trump-campaign-hack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/index.php\/2024\/09\/27\/iranian-operatives-charged-in-trump-campaign-hack\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian operatives charged in Trump campaign hack"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Justice Department has charged several Iranian operatives in connection with the hack of former President Trump\u2019s 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors on Friday unsealed charges against Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi \u2014 all members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the nation\u2019s armed forces. \u00a0<\/p>\n

They each face 18 counts, including aggravated identity theft, material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, wire fraud, and conspiracy to obtain information from a protected computer. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The men \u201cprepared for and engaged in a wide-ranging hacking campaign\u201d that targeted current and former U.S. government officials, members of the media, political campaigns and others, prosecutors said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The scheme began around January 2020 and continued through at least this month, according to the charging papers.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch activity is part of Iran’s continuing efforts to stoke discord, erode confidence in the U.S. electoral process, and unlawfully acquire information relating to current and former U.S. officials that could be used to advance the malign activities of the IRGC,\u201d the indictment reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The plot is also part of ongoing efforts to avenge the death of military official Qassem Soleimani, who headed a branch of the IRGC, according to the indictment. Soleimani was assassinated in January 2020 on orders approved by then-President Trump under the condition that Soleimani had been plotting attacks against Americans abroad.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s campaign was hacked earlier this summer<\/a>, but the issue was not made public until August, after reporters contacted the former president\u2019s team who said they were approached by a man claiming to be named Robert who said he had internal campaign documents.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The indictment says the men used fake online personas to \u201ctrick\u201d several victims. The Washington Post previously reported<\/a> that Trump campaign adviser Susie Wiles and longtime ally Roger Stone were among the hackers\u2019 targets.<\/p>\n

The FBI previously indicated<\/a> Iran made similar attempts to hack the Democratic campaign of President Biden, before he dropped out of the race. Vice President Harris was also targeted, but the effort was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

The agency said Iran attempted to share stolen information from the Trump campaign with Biden\u2019s campaign \u2014 and continues to send material to media outlets \u2014 but there is no evidence the president\u2019s campaign engaged with them. Harris\u2019s campaign previously condemned<\/a> the effort and said similar emails were ignored.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say hackers also targeted current or former officials at agencies including the Department of Defense, State Department and the CIA, in addition to current or former members of Congress, White House staffers and several journalists.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a statement, FBI Director Christopher Wray called the hacking effort \u201cbrazen behavior\u201d by Iran to interfere in the presidential election. Iran previously denied involvement<\/a> in the hacking campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cToday the FBI would like to send a message to the Government of Iran: You and your hackers can\u2019t hide behind your keyboards,\u201d Wray said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you try to meddle in our elections, we\u2019re going to hold you accountable. If you try to attack our infrastructure or commit violence against our citizens, we\u2019re going to disrupt you. And as long as you keep attempting to flout the rule of law, you\u2019re going to keep running into the FBI,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Updated at 1:21 p.m. EDT<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Justice Department has charged several Iranian operatives in connection with the hack of former President Trump\u2019s 2024 campaign. Prosecutors on Friday unsealed charges against Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi \u2014 all members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the nation\u2019s armed forces. \u00a0 They each face 18 counts, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1247,"href":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions\/1247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/filipzajac.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}