The First Major Cyberattack of the 2024 Election

from The New York Times I'm Michael. babbaro this is the. [Music]. daily today us authorities have. repeatedly warned that foreign. governments would seek to meddle in this. year's presidential race it now appears. that they were right my colleague White. House and National Security. correspondent David Sanger brings us the. story of the first first major Cyber.

attack of the 2024. [Music]. campaign it's Tuesday August. [Music]. 27th David a few weeks ago just after. the Republican National Convention when. the presidential race is entering its. most intensive phase.

the Trump campaign comes out and it says. we have been hacked and it doesn't get a. ton of attention at the time but you. have been trying to understand what. actually happened so tell us what you. have learned it started the Friday. before President Trump and his campaign. made that. announcement a major warning from. Microsoft about foreign interference in. the upcoming US presidential election.

there was a report that came out from. Microsoft and Microsoft of course has an. incredible view across the internet. because people are using so many. different Microsoft products so they're. usually among the first to see hacker. activity Microsoft outlining what it. says was an Iranian Cyber attack on an. active presidential campaign and so. before Trump made a statement they. released a report that declared that. there was a hacking group run by Iran.

Iran sent fake emails from a compromised. email account of a former senior adviser. and that it had successfully breached. the account of what they called a former. senior advisor to a presidential. campaign very tantalizing but also very. mysterious exactly. [Music]. Michael over the weekend former. president Donald Trump said his campaign. was half and he blamed Iran and then the.

next day president Trump came out and. his campaign and said that they had been. informed by Microsoft several weeks. before that they had in fact been hacked. unsurprisingly Iran is now trying to. tilt the election in kamla's favor very. strongly they're trying to they're. openly fighting for it but Mr Trump in. his usual way kind of fogged It Up by. saying don't worry they didn't get.

anything you couldn't get from our. website you know it wasn't terribly. important but he wanted to make the. point that a foreign intelligence. operation was trying to interfere in his. campaign got it and between these twin. announcements the first from Microsoft. the second from the Trump campaign what. do you end up learning has actually. occurred here well this was a strange. enough set of events that a group of us. all began to dig in I talked to.

Microsoft investigators and they. described in a little more detail what. they had learned then we also talked to. Federal investigators because we had. every reason to believe that the FBI was. on to this as well and from our sources. we learned Iran also targeted the Biden. Harris campaign the bigger surprise. Michael would have been if they hadn't. but we don't know if it had any real. effects H and then my colle Maggie.

Haberman and Adam Goldman and Glenn. thrush began to dig around with the. campaigns and they spoke to Roger Stone. who you'll remember was a longtime and. very close advisor to former president. Trump he was deeply involved in the. effort to alter the results of the 2020. election but it turns out that he had. received a warning also from Microsoft. and from federal investigators that both.

his Hotmail and Gmail accounts had been. compromised so piecing that all together. it appears that here's what. happened the Iranians ran what's called. a spear fishing campaign on Roger Stone. got him to answer an email and basically. give them access to his email accounts. and then they leveraged that to send out. emails that appeared to come from Stone. right a a trust Ed old friend of the.

Trump campaign to senior members of the. current. campaign and so it was a pretty. sophisticated socially engineered hack. by the Iranians to gain access to the. Trump campaign by pretending to be Roger. Stone David I want to get to whether or. not this fishing Expedition got Iran. anything that it was looking for but.

let's start with Iran's motivation for. trying to get inside the Trump campaign. in the first place Why Try to hack this. campaign well the key to this Michael. was the fact that Microsoft left no. doubt about who they thought this was it. wasn't some mysterious organization out. there someplace it was the military the. Islamic revolutionary guard Corps the. irgc.

which is the most elite part of the. Iranian military and historically some. of their most successful and aggressive. group of hackers they've got a lot of. motivations to try to derail a trump. presidency it's not simply that Trump is. anti-iran he's the one who killed off. the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reimpose. sanctions on the country just when. thought they had reached an agreement.

with the United States that basically. traded progress in their nuclear program. for reentering the world. economy not only that he was singularly. responsible for the death of cim. solomani who was a revered General Rose. through the irgc ranks ultimately ran. the kuds force which is one of their. most powerful units and he was killed in. January Ary of 2020 right and Trump.

personally as I remember it authorized. his assassination that's exactly right I. want to ask you when it comes to this. hack do we know what Iran actually. obtained from this attempted hacking. effort well it's a complicated question. Michael because we don't know whether. the senior members of Trump's campaign. fell for the same fishing attempt that. Roger Stone fell for and we don't know.

whether or not the Iranians as a result. were able to get inside the campaigns. systems and networks what we do know is. that around the same time that the Trump. campaign announced this hack a number of. news organizations including the times. reported that they had received some. documents largely vetting documents that. would be used to go assess potential. candidates for Vice president were about.

oh 200 Pages or so and they appeared to. be internal from the Trump campaign so. people jumped to the conclusion that it. must have come from the Iranian hack I. mean that would be a very logical. conclusion and I think for most of us. who've covered politics over the past. decade that was the moment where we said. to ourselves uhoh this is 2016 all over. again a foreign government with a stake. in the election Ste ing emails from a.

campaign to try to embarrass the. candidate and prevent that candidate. from becoming president in 2016 it was. when Russia stole emails from Hillary. Clinton gave them to reporters and now. this time around it appeared Iran was. doing the same thing trying to steal. emails from the Trump campaign to. embarrass him by giving those emails to. reporters Michael that's exactly what. everyone thought was happening initially. but I've covered cyber issues long.

enough to know that it's really easy to. LEAP to a conclusion that a certain set. of documents came from a certain hack. and I've been wrong plenty of times. before and the more we looked at these. we just weren't sure because the nature. of the documents which were not. immensely revealing could have come from. the Iranian hack but you'd expect that. they'd have a lot more if they had free. range inside the Trump campaign.

instead they could just as easily have. come from a disgruntled Insider they. weren't particularly confidential most. of these 200 Pages were filled up with. statements that were excerpts of lines. that Vance had used about how much he. disliked or distrusted Trump in the past. frankly there was nothing there that. couldn't have been assembled by a bright. college intern who spent a day making. their way through Google to just try to.

put together a dossier of nasty public. things Vance had already said understood. you're saying that the 206 analogy isn't. really a good one but I think we should. explain that for just a moment because I. think a lot of people who learned about. this Iranian hack wondered why aren't we. seeing news outlets publishing stories. based on what they presumed Iran had. stolen and that our journalists had in. their possession that might embarrass. Trump and why weren't they publishing.

these emails in the same way that they. had when Russia stole embarrassing. emails about Hillary Clinton and I hear. you saying that we aren't sitting on. embarrassing emails from the Trump. campaign if anything we're sitting on. publicly available information that as. you said a bright young intern could. find from Google searches about JD Vance. and that we don't even know where these. emails came from who took them which is. why the New York Times among other news. agencies hasn't really published any of.

this so far yeah that's exactly right. and I mean it's not my call that's for. senior editors of the paper and there. was certainly a live discussion of the. question but it was very different from. what we saw in. 2016 which were clearly emails from. inside a campaign right some of them. came from John podesta's account a. senior campaign. official those emails gave you a sense. of the internal Lance within Clinton's.

campaign there was an email for instance. in which podest and his AIDS criticized. Clinton for what they thought were her. terrible instincts as a candidate we. learned about the contents of paid. speeches that Clinton had given that. became the subject of controversy in the. campaign because she had declined to. publicly release them right and while a. publication of these emails has always. upset some of Hillary Clinton's. supporters the journalist explanation.

was that they revealed things we. previously didn't. know now the documents we got this month. asensi from inside the Trump campaign. they fundamentally didn't have any news. in them now Michael it's also possible. we're just at the beginning of this and. that at some point we'll see more. documents and maybe they'll be revealing. of what's Happening inside the Trump. campaign but we'd have to have a pretty. active journalistic discussion at that. time about whether any new documents.

were. newsworthy and of course there's always. the question of whether you're doing the. bidding of a foreign government by. publishing them so that conversation. aside for just a moment it very much. feels like Iran's attempted hack of the. Trump campaign is our first real warning. that this election 2024 is going to be. another election in which foreign. governments try to put their finger on. the scale try to influence the course of. and the outcome of our presidential.

election you know four years is a. lifetime in the technological. advancement of hacking techniques of the. sophistication of information operations. and now of course we have a whole new. Factor far more sophisticated artificial. intelligence tools that can be used to. fool voters and so. forth and of course the number of. countries that are interested in in. influencing the US election is growing.

and they've got capabilities of their. own to interfere and so when you add all. of this together and you compress the. problem into a pretty short cycle until. election day it could be a more potent. threat to interfere in the election. process than we've seen in past years. [Music].

we'll be right. back David let's talk about these. threats to the 2024 election that you. just raised this growing cast of players. that are a threat to our system and what. they might do to influence this election. well Michael the primary actors that the.

US intelligence Community is concerned. about is the old set of actors it's. Russia it's China and it's obviously. Iran as we've been discussing so in. early July ahead of all of this news. about the Trump campaign and Roger Stone. and Microsoft and all that the US. intelligence community issued a a public.

alert and said here's what they're. worried about obviously their first and. biggest concern was Russia and they were. saying that they were beginning to see. the Russians. identify specific voter. demographics and go amplify those. divisive narratives that they use so. well in 2016 when you'll recall they. grabbed on social divisions whether it. was abortion or gun control or or. something like that and they used it to.

go try to influence that election right. the idea was that they were going to. inflame existing partisan divisions in. our country that's right because that's. far more effective than trying to create. something new now for the Russians it. was pretty clear what their desired. outcome was they are very prot Trump the. Iranians as we've discussed are very. anti-trump and then in the middle of. this are the Chinese who have been a lot.

more cautious the intelligence agencies. doubt they're really planning to try to. influence the outcome here because. they're really not sure which candidate. they dislike the most Trump obviously. blamed China for covid has threatened. huge tariffs on their goods but it was. Joe Biden who actually put export. restrictions on the most high-end chips. that the Chinese need need to develop.

the large language models for artificial. intelligence so just to summarize Russia. when it thinks about meddling in our. election wants to do whatever it can to. help Trump Iran wants to do everything. it can to hurt Trump which we presume. means they'd like to see KLA Harris win. and when it comes to China we don't. really know which side China has picked. I'm curious when the US officials you. talk to think about meddling in 2024.

what precise scenario they most fear. from these three. countries well it's a great question. because there are different techniques. and they fear them for different reasons. so we've already talked about one of. them which is you fish into a campaign. you get some embarrassing memos you. release them okay so we're we're up on. that then there's the disinformation. stuff you go and you create Bots for. fake news. and then there's the third one which.

some us officials are most concerned. about and frankly it's the one that. concerns me the most about trying to. tamper with the election itself h on. Election Day to create doubts about. whether this was truly a fairly run vote. what would election tampering from a. foreign government look like. exactly well you know we focused a lot. in 2016. on the question of whether or not you.

could actually play with the voting. numbers and the election machines and. what we learned is that that's really. hard and it's hard because our system is. so disperate right every state uses a. different method some places use paper. ballots some places use ballots where. you mark something electronically but. there's a paper backup some use all. electronic systems and so forth and what.

we've discovered is that our system is. so discombobulated unlike the Europeans. who basically have one system used. throughout an entire country that it's. actually hard to hack okay this is one. of the rare moments fascinating where. the differences among the states is. actually a cyber safety device uh for us. right too messy to interfere with that. doesn't mean it's impossible but what. worries me the most is less the voting.

machines than the state voter. registration roles huh and just to. explain what you're referring to this is. the when you vote long ream of names and. signatures that contain the identities. of everyone who wants to vote that's. right and usually in most places you. have to register well ahead of election. day or you have to have been uh living. in a state for a certain period of time. so what worries me about the.

registration roles is that in the past. couple of years we have seen a huge. explosion in. ransomware right this is the software. that is used to lock up an entire city. you remember it happened to Baltimore it. happened to Atlanta it's happened to. many companies but it's not hard to. imagine a ransomware attack that was. aimed at locking up a state's ability. to go sign up new voters huh right and.

that then raises the question did. something happen to the. registration during that hack or around. it so that when you go to vote Michael. they look and say well this is very. interesting because you're voting in New. York but our system shows you move to. Arizona a few months ago right or we. think you're double registered someplace. and there is the possibility of creating.

just enough data manipulation to make. people question the accuracy and quality. of the voter registration roles got it. so the nightmare scenario is that. foreign. country basically hacks into I'm making. this up but a swing District somewhere. in Wisconsin takes over the voter roles. manipulates those voter roles in the. direction they want the election to go. in that state and we wouldn't know it.

happened until they released the voter. roles perhaps after a ransom is paid and. suddenly people show up to vote and they. find out uhoh I can't because my name's. been deleted I've been moved to Idaho. and suddenly it's a real mess what. you've described is the outside scenario. where they lock things up and they. manipulate the data but you know they. can do a lot of damage just by locking. things up because it creates the fog. about whether or not they did do.

anything and if you're trying to. manipulate the election you may have. done as much damage by creating the fear. that data was altered than by actually. altering it and there's very little. question who would seize on that doubt. it would be Donald Trump who with almost. every campaign appearance is throwing in. the line that someone is trying to go. influence the election to keep him from.

regaining office MH sometimes he blames. the Biden Administration sometimes he. blames the FBI sometimes he blames sisa. the group within the Department of. Homeland Security that overse cyber. security in the United States that's. providing election help to States and. towns and cities right so Trump is. seeding the clouds out here now for the. rainstorm that he might want to have. happen if he lost the election right and.

as we've explained on the show actually. within the past week he hasn't just. seated the clouds he has seated local. election boards with people who. anticipate that there might be. interference and problems and seem very. ready to raise objections to. certifying the results of this 2024. election that's exactly right and you. know in that episode that you ran last.

week what you discovered was that these. election workers would have some vaguely. defined right to hold up the. certification of the election if there. were reasonable doubts about the. election outcom so the perfect storm. that people who worry about this kind of. thing could imagine coming is enough. foreign interference to create that out. and then these presumably prot Trump.

newly appointed election officials using. that fog of uncertainty to declare that. they can't certify the results and have. them reported to. Congress well given that David it. strikes me that even if a foreign. country trying to interfere in our. elections were trying to help kamla. Harris let's say Iran that the doubts. that they would raise through their.

hacking efforts their cyber attacks. would probably end up benefiting Trump. more because of the doubts he has seated. and the supporters he has gotten onto. these local election. boards you have to think that that's. right and of course if he comes out. ahead he's not going to mention that fog. at. all David it feels worth posing a. devil's Advocates question here at the. end about our fears of election. interference because you have raised a.

lot of very worrisome scenarios in our. conversation but if we think back to. 2016 and we think back to 2020 I wonder. if our fears of interference were. greater than the reality of what foreign. countries were trying to do especially. when it comes to actually tampering with. results so is it possible that we have. gotten a little too worried about all of. this and the way we talk to America and.

maybe we should take this down a notch. or two 2016 and 2020 give you very. different answers to that question in. 2016 we knew before the election. happened that the Russians were trying. to get into the election roles and it. was only after the election that we. really understood the scope of the. information operations they were running. in 2020 we were much better prepared. and it turned out the Russians did.

relatively little in that election of. note and we saw for the first time some. awkward Iranian. interventions so what's that tell you. about. 2024 well the first thing it tells you. is that yes we can overhype the threat. but as in all threats the threat of. nuclear war the threat of biological. attack all the other parade of horribles. that you and I discuss at various.

moments you can. overhype the. concern but that's probably the only way. to get attention focused on the. possibilities and think about the. preventatives in other words the price. of vigilance against election. interference may be that we end up. feeding a narrative about election. interference we don't mean to but that. may just be the C of making sure we're.

prepared that's absolutely right but. let's remember here what we have at. stake this is one of the most. consequential elections in American. history it comes after two election. cycles in which we have worried about. foreign interference and one in which a. large part of the population has denied. that the election turned out the way it. really turned out cuz in Just 2 and 1/2.

months Michael there's going to be no. more important question than whether or. not this election was fairly run there's. no more important single issue for. retaining confidence in our democracy. and in our election system and the two. are so inextricably. intertwined that we have to get this. right.

well David thank you very much thank. you we'll be right. [Music]. back here's what else you need to no day.

on Monday Democrats sued the Georgia. state election board arguing that its. efforts to alter the state's election. certification process were illegal and. could create Chaos on Election Day the. board's actions give local election. officials the authority to conduct. investigations into voting before. certifying the results a power that. Democrats fear will lead to delays and. Miss deadlines in a key swing state. and prosecutors in France said they have.

arrested the founder of telegram in. connection with an investigation into. criminal activity on the popular. messaging app the investigation. prosecutors say includes complicity in. the distribution of child pornography. drug sales moneya laundering and the. refusal by telegram's leaders to. cooperate with law. enforcement if you want more news and I. suspect you do check out our other Daily.

News show it's called the headlines it. brings you the day's top stories along. with analysis from times reporters all. in about 10 minutes or less and you can. subscribe to it wherever you get your. podcasts today's episode was produced by. CLA tennis skar and Michael Simon. Johnson with help from Shannon Lynn it. was edited by Lexi de and Michael benois. contains original music by Maran Lozano. Pat mccusker and Dan pal and was. engineered by Chris Wood our theme music.

is by Jim brunberg and Ben lansberg of. [Music]. [Music]. wonderly that's it for the daily I'm. Michael buaro see you tomorrow. [Music].