US Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign team was targeted in July by an “influence operation by a foreign actor,” one of its officials said on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We have robust cybersecurity measures in place and have not noted any breaches in our systems” following the attack, which was reported by the FBI, the US federal police, the official said, without giving further details, such as the country from which the hacking attempt originated.
The campaign team of former Republican President Donald Trump, Kamala Harris’ rival in the race for the White House, had also announced three days ago that it had suffered a hack. It had accused “foreign sources” of having leaked internal communications and a file on JD Vance, the billionaire’s running mate.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung pointed specifically to an incident report released by Microsoft late last week that said Iranian hackers “sent a phishing email in June to a senior presidential campaign official.”
In 2016, the Democratic National Committee’s emails were also hacked. The attack, attributed to Russia, exposed internal communications involving Hillary Clinton, the party’s then-picked candidate to face Donald Trump.
The Republican, who won the presidential election that year, was subsequently criticized for encouraging the publication of this information, particularly by the WikiLeaks website.
