USA: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of USA have released a joint statement stating that Iran seeks to stoke discord and undermine confidence in its democratic institutions.
According to the statement, Iran has furthermore demonstrated a longstanding interest in exploiting societal tensions through various means, including through the use of cyber operations to attempt to gain access to sensitive information related to U.S. elections.
In addition to these sustained efforts to complicate the ability of any U.S. administration to pursue a foreign policy at odds with Iran’s interests, the Intelligence Community (IC) has previously reported that Iran perceives this year’s elections to be particularly consequential in terms of the impact they could have on its national security interests, increasing Tehran’s inclination to try to shape the outcome.
“We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns. This includes the recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign, which the IC attributes to Iran,” it continued.
The IC is confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties. Such activity, including thefts and disclosures, is intended to influence the U.S. election process.
It is important to note that this approach is not new. Iran and Russia have employed these tactics not only in the United States during this and prior federal election cycles but also in other countries around the world.
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