three Iranians indicted in the United States

Three Iranians acting on behalf of the Revolutionary Guards, the armed wing of the Tehran regime, are being prosecuted in the United States for computer hacking of Donald Trump’s campaign, announced Friday, September 27, the American authorities.

The judicial information made public by Washington sheds a little more light on the series of documents stolen from the Republican candidate. This summer, Donald Trump’s teams announced that they had been victims of a hack before the American authorities designated Iran as responsible for these operations. At the same time, members of Joe Biden’s campaign – before his withdrawal from the race for the White House – but also American journalists were contacted directly by the hackers who offered them access to certain stolen documents.

American justice therefore puts a name and a face to these pirates: Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yaser Balaghi are presented as experienced cyberhackers, engaged since January 2020 in a vast operation with multiple objectives. According to the indictment document, they notably targeted – without success – members of the White House, the National Security Council, the Ministry of Defense and the CIA, but also journalists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs ), think tanks or staff members of the United Nations (UN).

Hackers targeted the Trump campaign starting in May

It was in May 2024 that these hackers, according to American justice, took a particular interest in Donald Trump’s campaign. Iran would take a very dim view of the Republican’s return to the White House: it was he who ordered the drone strike killing Ghassem Soleimani, leader of the Revolutionary Guards and architect of Iranian military operations in the Middle East , January 3, 2020.

After using phishing operations to gain access to the emails of several campaign officials, they managed to steal information on the preparation of the June presidential debate as well as on Donald Trump’s potential running mates. .

At least part of this loot was then sent to Joe Biden’s campaign entourage, notably on June 27, a few hours before what will be the Democratic candidate’s last televised debate before his withdrawal from the race for the White House . According to the judicial authorities, the Democratic camp did not react to these mailings and collaborated with the federal police, responsible for the investigation. The documents were also sent to several editorial offices: all of them decided that, given their provenance, their content was not interesting enough to be published.

It was only in recent days that an independent journalist decided to make public the document compiled by Donald Trump’s team listing all the potentially compromising information from JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, which earned the journalist banned from the social network

“Undermining the ex-president’s campaign”

This legal accusation confirms the growing nuisance power of Iranian pirates, and the growing interest they have in American political life. These operations are part of the “Iran’s attempts to sow discord and undermine confidence in the US electoral system”declared the Minister of Justice, Merrick Garland, during a press conference. “The defendants clearly said they wanted to undermine former President Trump’s campaign for the 2024 election”underlined Mr. Garland.

The message from the U.S. government is clear: it is the American people, not a foreign power, who decide the outcome of our elections. Not Iran and its malicious cyber actions »he said. “Not Russia” And “not China”added the minister, in reference to the attempts at interference attributed to these two countries by the United States.

The US Treasury Department also announced sanctions against seven individuals for their alleged involvement in “Iran’s operations to influence or interfere in the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections” – he is one of the three accused as well as six employees of an Iranian cybersecurity company, Emennet Pasargad.

The latter, already hit by American sanctions, is a subcontractor of the regime well known for having orchestrated a number of cyber operations. It was notably she who was accused, in 2023 by Microsoft, of having committed a hack against Charlie Hebdo. Data stolen from the satirical newspaper’s servers, including email and postal addresses of subscribers, had been put up for sale on at least two specialized forums. American authorities also accused this same company for having been behind a destabilization campaign during the 2020 presidential election, during which they notably sent intimidating emails to certain American voters.