Three Iranians accused of hacking Trump campaign

The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday charged three Iranian nationals with hacking into former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Masoud Jalili, Yasar Balaghi, and Seyyed Ali Aghamiri stole identities, engaged in wire fraud, and materially supported a foreign terrorist organization, the DOJ said. Beginning in 2020, the three men participated in a hacking campaign backed by the Iranian military that targeted U.S. government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and presidential campaigns since 2020, the department alleged. The men are not in custody.

Where are the hackers? The DOJ on Friday said it was offering up to $10 million as a reward for information about the activities or location of the three men. The department is also offering a monetary reward for information that helps to disrupt other foreign hacking campaigns like the one in which the men participated.

What happened with the Trump campaign, exactly? Earlier this year, the Iranian hackers successfully accessed accounts associated with Trump’s campaign, the DOJ alleged. Eventually, Microsoft, Google, and U.S. intelligence agencies all confirmed the hacking attack took place. Iran, meanwhile, has denied wrongdoing. The hackers pierced the security features on the accounts associated with the campaign using sophisticated spearphishing techniques. Similar to phishing scams that trick group consumers into divulging personal information, spearphishing attacks are tailored to specific targets.

The hackers used accounts designed to look like they came from real current and former U.S. government officials to send emails to Trump campaign staff, the DOJ said. Those emails contained links that, when opened, allowed the hackers to open the accounts they were targeting. They then sent emails from the compromised accounts to other accounts, thereby perpetuating the spearphishing scheme.

Dig deeper: Listen to Mary Muncy’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about concerns that other countries such as China and Russia could try to interfere with U.S. elections.