Iran denies hacking Trump campaign

Former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign on Saturday confirmed to Politico that it had fallen victim to a cyberattack. The report followed a Friday statement by Microsoft about Iranian hacking attempts. Trump’s campaign confirmed that internal documents had been leaked, but did not explicitly confirm it was Iran that had leaked the documents, Politico reported.

But Iran has denied these allegations? On Sunday, Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations rejected allegations it hacked into Trump’s campaign, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news group. Iran had no reason to interfere in U.S. presidential elections, IRNA reported. Iran itself also suffered from routine cyberattacks, Iranian officials alleged.

In the Friday report, Microsoft alleged Iranian cyber groups had upped their efforts to sway U.S. voters before November’s presidential election. An Iranian-run cyber group called Mint Sandstorm had hacked into an unspecified presidential campaign in June, according to the report. The attack was a link sent from a compromised email account of a former senior adviser. Microsoft described email as a spear phishing attack tailored to an individual person. A Trump spokesman confirmed to Politico that a group hostile to the United States carried out the attack and that it did so in June.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about Microsoft’s initial report about Iranian election interference.