Hackers with links to Iran are threatening to disclose emails stolen from the US President’s inner circle.
The hackers, who go by the pseudonym Robert, told Reuters in an online chat that they have 100 gigabytes of stolen emails from Susie Wiles, the White House’s chief of staff, Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s lawyer, Roger Stone, Trump’s advisor and Stormy Daniels, the porn star at the centre of the Trump camp’s hush-money scandal.
The group, Robert, said they could sell the material but didn’t provide Reuters with any details on their plans, nor describe what was in the emails.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) wrote on X that Robert’s plans for a cyberattack were “nothing but digital propaganda, a calculated smear campaign aimed at harming President Trump and defaming honourable public servants”.
The threat comes a few weeks after the US bombed the Fordow uranium processing plant in Iran as part of ongoing tensions between the Middle Eastern country and Israel over nuclear weapons programmes.
On June 30, CISA wrote in a statement that Iranian cyber actors might target “vulnerable” US networks and sites of interest, noting that defence companies with ties to Israel might be at increased risk.
So far, there have been some attempts on American banks, defence contractors and the air force by Iranian-backed groups.
Previous attack to gain the Trump campaign’s emails
Robert’s threat, seen by Reuters, comes a year after an Iran-backed group allegedly leaked similar emails from the Trump administration in what the government said was an attempt to interfere in the 2024 election.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said that Iranian cyber actors sent “unsolicited emails” to those involved with the campaign of former president Joe Biden with stolen material from Trump’s campaign. The same information was then sent to members of the media.
The FBI called it at the time the “latest example of Iran’s multipronged approach to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our electoral process”.
A month later, the FBI said it had indicted three individuals from Iran with connections to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the country’s military, in connection with the cyber attacks.
The US Department of National Intelligence (DNI) considers Iran’s cyber operations to be a “major threat to the security of US networks and data,” according to a report published in March this year.
State-sponsored Iranian groups and hacktivists regularly target “poorly secured US networks and Internet-connected devices for disruptive cyber attacks,” according to the DHS report.
The US, among other countries, has designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organisation since 2019.
