Election Interference: Iranian Hackers Indicted

Executive Summary:

On Friday, September 26, 2024, the United States Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced the indictment of three Iranian hackers, living in Iran, on charges of  ‘Material Support for Terrorism’, ‘Computer Fraud’, ‘Wire Fraud’, and ‘Identity Theft’. The three hackers, Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yaser Balaghi worked on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a state-sponsored military terrorist organization, to target former American public officials, journalists, and individuals associated with U.S political campaigns [1]. From June to August, the hackers gained access to personal email accounts and obtained confidential information, such as debate preparation and potential VP candidate picks, and leaked the information to an opposing campaign [2]. The hackers gained initial access through a variety of methods such as social engineering, malware, spoofing login pages, creating ‘persona accounts’, using compromised email accounts, and hosting hacking infrastructure on cloud service providers [4]. 

Background:

The Iranian attack was motivated by both revenge and geopolitical interests. Ever since the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979, to oust the US-backed former king of Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been actively pursuing the removal of US influence from the Middle East. From its current skirmishes with Israel to its pursuit of its infamous nuclear weapons program, Iran’s actions naturally put it in contention with current US foreign policy in the region. As a result of these issues — and many more left out for the sake of brevity such as human rights and terrorism — the rivalry climaxed in 2020 with the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani as ordered by former President Donald Trump. Due to this, and the former president’s rhetoric on policy against the country, the Iranian state views the former president as a threat to its power and thus something to be undermined in this current election [4]. Naturally, Iran is not the only country with an interest in pursuing a favored outcome from the 2024 elections and is only one of many countries that are currently being monitored for election interference. 

Impact:

There is no information indicating that the recipients of the leaks replied to the leakers or communicated with them at all [1]. Due to the now outdated nature of the information that was leaked from the campaign, as referenced in the indictment, it is safe to assume that the impact of this particular breach of privacy and confidentiality has been mostly contained. However, due to the nature of online crimes and the lack of an extradition treaty between the US and Iran, the hackers have, since June, continued their efforts in sending stolen private information of the former president to US media organizations in hopes of affecting the election [1]. Since Iran is a participant in the crime, it is highly unlikely the suspects will find themselves being extradited to the US in the near future. 

Significance:

While the indictment of the three Iranian hackers is likely to remain unresolved, it is important to still see the indictment for the message that it is: all cybercrimes done to the US will be pursued, no matter where they are from and no matter what country they are protected by. A charge of this scale de facto bans the suspects from the entirety of Europe. 

This was not the first time the US has indicted foreign actors acting under the command of rival nations. In March, the Justice Department indicted multiple Chinese hackers for similar crimes [3]. This shows a noticeable trend toward uniting the cyber world with the physical world in our ever changing age of information technology. 

References:

[1] Garland, M. B., “Office of Public Affairs | Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Delivers Remarks Announcing the Results of Operation North Star,” 2024 https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-merrick-b-garland-delivers-remarks-announcing-results-operation-north 

[2]Lyngaas S., Rabinowitz H., Perez E., Hansler J., “Iranian hackers indicted Friday allegedly sought to impersonate Ginni Thomas as they targeted Trump campaign,” 2024 https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/27/politics/iran-trump-hackers-charged/index.html 

[3]Office of Public Affairs, “Office of Public Affairs | Seven Hackers Associated with Chinese Government Charged with Computer Intrusions Targeting Perceived Critics of China and U.S. Businesses and Politicians,” 2024 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/seven-hackers-associated-chinese-government-charged-computer-intrusions-targeting-perceived 

[4]“United States v. Jalili, Aghamiri, & Balaghi,” 2024 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1foOTEi50eHNn_HTSwmaXRoJ84A083Zld/view