[Washington = Ouchi Kiyoshi]It has been learned that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been investigating since June the possibility of Iranian involvement in the hacking of internal information from the campaign of former President Trump (78), the Republican candidate for the US presidential election. The Washington Post (online edition) reported on the 12th. According to the paper, there were also hacking attacks on the campaigns of Democratic President Biden (81) and Vice President Harris (59), but no damage has been confirmed so far.

On the 10th, the Trump campaign announced that it had been hacked, following a report from Microsoft stating that organizations affiliated with the Iranian government were stepping up their cyber operations targeting presidential candidates. It is believed that information was stolen using a phishing tactic, sending emails containing malware (malicious software), and then leaked to some media organizations.

The leaked documents include those of Senator Vance (40), whom Trump investigated during the process of selecting his running mate. The campaign explained that “only publicly available information was leaked.”

According to the paper, similar phishing attacks were also carried out on the Biden and Harris campaigns before they withdrew from the election. The FBI is investigating both attacks, suspecting that Iran was involved. Iran denies any involvement.

In terms of cyber attacks on presidential candidates, there was an instance in the 2016 presidential election when the Democratic National Committee’s system was invaded, resulting in a large amount of emails from the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign, who was running against Trump, being leaked, which led to a decline in Clinton’s support. This attack was later determined to have been an act of Russian election interference.