US intelligence officials blame Iran for Trump, Harris hacks

US security agencies on Monday accused Iran of launching cyberattacks targeting the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election.

"We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle," security agencies, including the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a statement.

The agencies said such activity specifically involved "cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns."

The intelligence community was confident that "the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties," the statement added.

The investigating agencies, however, did not provide details of how they confirmed Iran's role in the hacking attack nor did they disclose what type of information may have been stolen from the Trump campaign.

How did Iran respond?

Iran's mission to the United Nations denied the allegations as "unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing."

It also challenged the US to show evidence and said if Washington did so "we will respond accordingly."

What do we know about the cyberattacks?

Earlier this month, Trump's Republican campaign had said that it was a target of "hacking" and blamed "foreign sources" for distributing internal information and a dossier on running mate JD Vance.

It had implied that Iran was behind the attack.

"These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process," Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.

The Harris campaign complained that it had also come under a hacking attack by foreign entities but did not name a country.

mfi/fb (AFP, AP, Reuters)