Exclusive: Inside Iran’s hacking operation that has US officials on edge ahead of 2024 election

Two years before Iranian hackers breached Donald Trump’s campaign this summer, they used a similar ploy to target a former administration official and onetime confidant of John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser and prominent Iran critic.

Two years before Iranian hackers breached Donald Trump’s campaign this summer, they used a similar ploy to target a former administration official and onetime confidant of John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser and prominent Iran critic. After infiltrating the person’s email account, the hackers sent what seemed like a harmless request to a group of fellow US-based Iran hawks, asking them to review a supposed book the person was writing about Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. “I am close to finishing the manuscript and have begun asking experts like yourselves to review the chapters,” read the email from June 2022, a copy of which was obtained by CNN. The email encouraged the half-dozen recipients to click a link that promised to take them to the supposed manuscript. Instead, it contained malicious code that would have granted the hackers unfettered access to the targets’ computers. Not long after the email was sent, the person notified the FBI and warned colleagues in a subsequent email of a “pretty sophisticated hack” that was impersonating them. A CNN review of the hacking group, which experts believe works on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reveals previously unreported details of the hackers’ multiyear operation, including how they have targeted former members of both the Trump and Biden administrations.