A TOP former cybersecurity official is warning both Democrats and Republicans that their campaigns and voters may face cyber attacks as bad as nearly 10 years ago in the coming months.
Chris Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, issued the warning just minutes after the Trump campaign claimed it had been hacked on Saturday.
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Krebs, who served under former President Donald Trump between 2018 and 2020, urged voters to “buckle up” heading into the November presidential election.
“Buckle up. Confirmed hack & leak of Trump Campaign sensitive documents,” Kregs wrote on X.
“Initial response by Campaign suggests foreign sources, coinciding with Microsoft’s alert from this past week and the @ODNIgov alert of the week before.
“Someone is running the 2016 playbook, expect continued efforts to stoke fires in society and go after election systems – 95% votes on paper ballots is a strong resilience measure, combined with audits.
“But the chaos is the point,” he added.
On Saturday afternoon, Politico first reported that the Trump campaign was hacked, after receiving emails from an anonymous account that included documents from the campaign.
The campaign has since blamed Iran for the cyber attack, saying the hackers “sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign.
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the campaign told the outlet that the documents the hackers attempted to leak to the press were “obtained illegally from foreign sources” and “intended to interfere” with the upcoming November election.
The documents reportedly included information on Trump’s running mate JD Vance, including his 271-page vetting file that featured Vance’s past criticisms of the former president.
The leaked docs also featured information on Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who had been considered a potential pick for Trump’s running mate.
“I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from. Any answer to this question, will compromise me and also legally restricts you from publishing them,” the hacker reportedly said, per Politico.
The Trump campaign has blasted Iran for the cyber attack with Cheung saying, “The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House.”
However, the Iranian government has taken to X to deny responsibility.
“Urgent: representation at the United Nations,” the post read.
It comes as…
- Anthony Scaramucci warns Trump that JD Vance and Tim Walz will cause him problems
- JD Vance blasts Tim Walz as ‘shameful’ as he and Trump tear into the Democratic VP pick
- A poll by Democrats says Harris made the wrong choice with Walz and could ‘pay the price’
- Tim Walz uses first campaign rally speech to take vicious swipe at his Republican rival
- Harris defends Walz’s military service after Vance slams his departure before his unit served in a combat zone
- Trump abruptly stops Montana rally to call for a doctor in the crowd
- Trump calls Walz ‘freakish’ and warns US will turn into ‘Communist nation’
“We deny allegations regarding hacking of the election campaign of presidential candidate Donald Trump.”
Despite the denial, Trump has continued to place blame on the foreign nation.
“We were just informed by Microsoft Corporation that one of our many websites was hacked by the Iranian Government – Never a nice thing to do,” Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social.
“They were only able to get publicly available information but, nevertheless, they shouldn’t be doing anything of this nature.”
What to know about the hack on Trump’s campaign
News dropped on August 10 that Donald Trump’s campaign was compromised. Here’s all you need to know about the hack,
- Documents from the Trump campaign leaked to Politico reportedly by a hack from foreign officials.
- The news comes after Microsoft released a report in April citing four Iranian groups attempting to influence the US elections.
- The Trump campaign said Iran was targeting the former president due to his policies against the country.
- Iranian leader Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US airstrike ordered by the Trump campaign in 2020 and national officials have said the former president then became a target.
- Documents compromised in the hack reportedly included vetting files for Trump’s running mate JD Vance and finalist Senator Marco Rubio.
- This isn’t the first time the Justice Department has investigated foreign interference in US elections, following a hack into Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.
- Trump was also reportedly the target of an Iranian assassination plot in July.
“Iran and others will stop at nothing, because our Government is Weak and Ineffective, but it won’t be for long,” the former president added.
“What Iran doesn’t realize is that I will make the World a better and safer place, and that’s good for them, also!”
OTHER WARNINGS
Krebs isn’t alone in his warning that cyber attacks similar to those that occurred during the 2016 election may be imminent as Trump sets to face off against Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz in November.
Multiple former top officials publicly warned at the 2024 DEF CON hacking conference on Saturday that the hacking of the Trump campaign could be a symptom of a greater issue, according to Politco.
“The idea that hack and leaks are going to happen in 2024 has been previewed and we have our first hack and leak of the Trump campaign today,” said Nicole Tisdale, a former director on the White House National Security Council between 2021 and 2022.
Read more on the Scottish Sun
Jake Braun, who served as the acting deputy principal national cybersecurity director under Biden, said he hopes both campaigns come out against any hacking of the other.
“If they’re going into the more hack and dump type thing in 2016, that’s obviously bad, and I would hope … that both campaigns are against hacking of any campaign so that we don’t have a repeat of 2016,” Braun said.
