Chinese hackers attempted to breach Trump, Vance cellphone data: report
The U.S. government is investigating unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by Chinese hackers, targets of which include the Trump campaign.
The campaign was informed this week of the potential breach of cellphones used by former President Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, the New York Times reported Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
"After the FBI identified specific malicious activity targeting the sector, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) immediately notified affected companies, rendered technical assistance, and rapidly shared information to assist other potential victims," the FBI and CISA told Fox News Digital in a joint statement.
The FBI and CISA said the investigation was ongoing and "we encourage any organization that believes it might be a victim to engage its local FBI field office or CISA. Agencies across the U.S. Government are collaborating to aggressively mitigate this threat and are coordinating with our industry partners to strengthen cyber defenses across the commercial communications sector."
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The anonymous officials said that investigators are working to find out if any data was stolen from the campaign, adding that other people in the U.S. government may have been targeted by the attackers.
The Trump campaign blamed the Biden administration and Vice President Kamala Harris over the attack.
"This is the continuation of election interference by Kamala Harris and Democrats who will stop at nothing, including emboldening China and Iran attacking critical American infrastructure, to prevent President Trump from returning to the White House," Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump campaign, told Fox News Digital on Friday.
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"Their dangerous and violent rhetoric has given permission to those who wish to harm President Trump," Cheung added. "They have now stood by and allowed major foreign adversaries to attack us in order to illegally help Kamala because they know she represents a weak American who will always bow down. Whereas, President Trump will actually stand up against our enemies and defend the United States from any and all aggression."
The news comes months after the Trump campaign said campaign data was targeted by hackers from Iran.
In September, three hackers linked to Iran were indicted in connection with a hacking plot against the Trump campaign.
The three hackers, who are accused of working for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were allegedly "engaged in a wide-ranging hacking campaign that used spear-phishing and social engineering techniques to target and compromise the accounts of current and former U.S. government officials, members of the media, nongovernmental organizations, and individuals associated with U.S. political campaigns."
"These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process," Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump campaign, said in August after Politico reported that the campaign had been targeted through spearfishing.
Fox News Digital has also reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.
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This isn’t the first election cycle a foreign power has attempted to influence the election via hacking.
In 2016, the Democratic candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, and the DNC infamously had their emails hacked by Russia and released through Wikileaks during the election.