Suspected Iranian hackers breached Roger Stone’s personal email as part of effort to target Trump campaign, sources say

By Sean Lyngaas, Evan Perez and Kristen Holmes, CNN

(CNN) — The FBI and other investigators probing the apparent hack-and-leak of Trump campaign documents, which Donald Trump has blamed on Iran, suspect that the hackers were able to compromise the personal email account of longtime Republican and Trump operative Roger Stone, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

The hackers used access to Stone’s email account to try to break into the account of a senior Trump campaign official as part of a persistent effort to access campaign networks, one of the sources said. The hacking incident, which occurred in June, set off a scramble in the Trump campaign, the FBI and Microsoft, which spotted the intrusion attempts, to contain the incident and to determine if there was a broader cyber threat from Iran.

Stone was informed by Microsoft and the FBI that his personal email was compromised by a “Foreign State Actor,” with the intention of utilizing the account to phish officials in the Trump campaign into opening a link that would give perpetrators access to that person’s computer, one of the sources familiar said.

“Mr. Stone was contacted about this matter by Microsoft and the FBI and continues to cooperate with both,” said Grant Smith, an attorney for the Republican operative. “Mr. Stone will have no further comment at this time.”

The Washington Post first reported that Stone’s account was targeted. The Trump campaign declined to comment on whose account was breached.

The FBI also briefed the Biden-Harris campaign about Iranian hackers targeting that campaign, one of the sources said.

“In July, the campaign legal and security teams were notified by the FBI that we were targeted by a foreign actor influence operation,” a Harris campaign official said in a statement on Tuesday. “We have robust cybersecurity measures in place and are not aware of any security breaches of our systems resulting from those efforts. We remain in communication with appropriate law enforcement authorities.”

The FBI said in a statement Monday that it was investigating the reported cyberattack on the Trump campaign but declined to comment further.

US intelligence officials have briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee on the hacking incident, another source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Iran has denied the allegations, and the US government has not publicly or officially pointed the finger at Iran. But the techniques used by the hackers to target the Trump campaign match those associated with Iranian hackers, according to one source familiar with the matter.

The news adds to growing evidence that Iranian operatives are mounting an aggressive effort to influence the 2024 US presidential election, overshadowing activity from the Russians. US intelligence officials last month warned of an ongoing covert social media campaign by Iran to undercut Trump’s candidacy and to increase “social discord” in the US ahead of the November election. That activity has included creating fake news sites targeting liberal and conservative voters, according to Microsoft.

The US director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, has also accused Iran of attempting to covertly stoke protests in the US related to the Israel-Hamas conflict by posing as activists online and in some cases providing financial support to protesters.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct when the Biden-Harris campaign was told it had been targeted by Iranian hackers.

CNN’s Zachary Cohen contributed reporting.

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