Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fl. – leaders of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence – renewed their call this week to bolster cybersecurity in the U.S. presidential election process following a Microsoft report warning of foreign adversaries’ plans to influence this year’s election.
In its Aug. 8 report, Microsoft shared intelligence of activity it has been tracking that “points to Iran’s intent to influence this year’s US presidential election” and shared examples that “illuminate what we can increasingly expect from Iran as we near November.”
Most notably, the report says that in June a group run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps intelligence unit – Mint Sandstorm – “sent a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor. The phishing email contained a fake forward with a hyperlink that directs traffic through an actor-controlled domain before redirecting to the listed domain.”
“On June 13, Mint Sandstorm also unsuccessfully attempted to log in to an account belonging to a former presidential candidate,” the report says. Microsoft acknowledged that additional evidence will be required to make a final determination on whether these hacking attempts were related to the election.
“Regardless of the intent, this targeting is a reminder that senior policymakers should be cognizant of monitoring and following cybersecurity best practices even for legacy or archived infrastructure, as they can be ripe targets for threat actors seeking to collect intelligence, run cyber-enabled influence operations, or both,” the report says.
“With less than 100 days to go before the election, it is clear that our foreign adversaries are intently interested in disrupting our democratic process,” Sens. Warner and Rubio said in an Aug. 14 statement. “While we await additional information from the Intelligence Community and law enforcement on the extent of recent foreign efforts against presidential campaigns, indications from Microsoft that foreign cyber actors may have penetrated a presidential campaign’s infrastructure are grounds for serious concern.”
“Protecting the integrity of our elections from foreign meddling requires constant attention,” the senators said. “This includes bolstering campaign cybersecurity, heightened vigilance from media outlets on the potential of spreading hacked or manipulated content from foreign intelligence services, and a commitment by both political parties to call out foreign election influence efforts.”
Following the release of the Microsoft report – which declined to name which presidential candidate was hacked – Politico first reported on Aug. 10 that the Trump campaign is claiming it was hacked by Iran in June. The FBI told the Washington Post Monday that they have launched an official investigation into the alleged cyberattacks.
“As the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, we condemn any type of potential influence effort by foreign adversaries and urge the Intelligence Community and law enforcement agencies to urgently examine these reports and, as appropriate, work to notify those affected and the American public,” Sens. Warner and Rubio said in their joint statement this week. “Foreign adversaries must also be put on notice that there will be consequences to interfering in the American democratic process, and the Administration and both political parties must make that clear.”
