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.
Biden’s campaign said in a statement that it was aware of Google’s latest report.
„We have known from the beginning of our campaign that we would be subject to such attacks and we are prepared for them,“ the campaign said. „Biden for President takes cybersecurity seriously, we will remain vigilant against these threats, and will ensure that the campaign’s assets are secured.“
The Trump campaign likewise said it had been briefed that foreign actors „unsuccessfully attempted to breach the technology of our staff.“
„We are vigilant about cybersecurity and do not discuss any of our precautions,” the campaign said.
“It’s not surprising that a number of state actors are targeting our elections. We’ve been warning about this for years,“ an official from DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency said in a statement. „Our job at CISA is to make sure they’re not successful.“
Today’s announcement „shows that secure, resilient elections are much bigger than state and local, or even federal government efforts. The private sector has a key role, as does the American voter.“
The agency will continue to work with „political committees to help defend their systems and accounts. We’ll share this information with Congressional campaigns and state and local election officials so they can be prepared as well,“ according to the official.
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.
The Iranian group that Google said targeted Trump’s reelection bid is known as APT35 or Charming Kitten. It is the same group reported to have targeted accounts associated with the Trump campaign last year.
Source: politico.com
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