Expect More Foreign Attacks Before November

While this is far from the biggest breach of the year, it is likely the one with the most political impact. At least so far. I assume the campaigns are doubling or tripling down on their security.

Last week Politico said that it received multiple emails from a leaker who said that they hacked the Trump campaign. These emails contained internal Trump campaign documents.

Sources say that the Biden-Harris campaign (this would seem to date this report as coming before Biden dropped out of the race) received spear phishing emails and the FBI is investigating that as well as the leaked Trump data. The attempts to attack the Democrats does not appear to have been successful this time.

But there is plenty of time before November.

Get in your time machine and go back to the summer of 2016, just before the DNC convention and the leak of thousands of Clinton emails. Those emails were published by Wikileaks and likely had a significant effect on the election. Credit: Wikipedia

You may also remember that just before that breach, candidate Trump publicly asked Russia to hack the Clinton campaign. Credit: The Independent

In 2019, then President Trump was asked if he would take those emails if offered and he said “I think I’d take it”.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, team Trump has a different take.

Not surprisingly, they are scrambling to assess the damage that might be caused by the leaking or selective leaking of documents or emails.

The campaign is preemptively criticizing any journalist who dares to report on the documents.

That, by itself, is highly unlikely to have any effect.

And, courts almost never preemptively nullify the first Amendment and are unlikely to do so now. Once they are out, it is game over for containing the damage.

In 2016 Trump said, at a press conference, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing”, following that with “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”.

Now the campaign is saying “Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want”. Credit: Rolling Stone

So which one is correct?

While the Trump campaign has definitively stated this is the work of Iran and it certainly might be, investigators are not confirming that. Yet.

Microsoft has said that Iranian hackers broke into the account of a high ranking official on the US presidential campaign in June. They are not providing any more details.

One of the documents stolen is a research dossier on J.D. Vance, including his criticisms of Trump in past years.

When Politico asked the sender of the emails how they got the data, they were told not to ask as that might legally restrict you from publishing them. Politico has not said if or when they might publish what they received. Credit: Data Breach Today

We also don’t know if the emails were sent to anyone else.

Assuming this is the work of Iran, the likely purpose to sow discord and cast doubt over the American election. You might also think that they would hack the candidate they want to hurt the most. Experts say that Americans should not fall for the scam.

Chris Krebs, former head of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the leak is likely a harbinger of more disinformation attempts to come. “Keep in mind that you’re part of the playbook, they want you to either amplify it or doubt it,” he said via X, urging Americans to not fall for the ruse.

Politico has been receiving these documents from a user named Robert using an AOL email account. If he is smart, it is not his account.

Of course no one should assume that all of the documents that might get leaked in the future are genuine. Some might be and others might not be.

We should assume that there will be more breaches between now and November. Credit: Data Breach Today

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