The presidential campaigns for President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden were recently targeted by foreign groups for hacking campaigns, Google said on Thursday.
Shane Huntley, the head of Google’s Threat Analysis Group, said in a Twitter thread that hackers backed by China targeted the Biden campaign and hackers backed by Iran targeted Trump’s campaign.
Huntley said there were no signs that either campaign were compromised by the targeting, but the instances were referred to law enforcement. Huntley also warned that those working for campaigns might have their personal accounts targeted as the election kicks into high gear.
“Recently TAG saw China APT group targeting Biden campaign staff & Iran APT targeting Trump campaign staff with phishing. No sign of compromise. We sent users our govt attack warning and we referred to fed law enforcement,” Huntley tweeted.
APT stands for Advance Persistent Threat.
In a statement to TechCrunch, Google said the efforts from China and Iran were phishing attempts that targeted personal email accounts for both Biden and Trump’s campaign staff.
Phishing is when someone sends an email to someone else disguised as authentic, with the goal of snatching up personal information.
The hacking of political campaigns was a major issue in the 2016 presidential election, after Russian groups broke into the Democratic National Committee’s network.
Last year, Microsoft warned that Iran was targeting a presidential campaign. The New York Times reported that Trump’s reelection campaign was the target.
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