Three Iranians are accused of hacking Trump's campaign

The US Justice Department on Thursday charged three Iranian nationals with hacking attacks on former President Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Masoud Jalili, Yasar Balaghi and Seyyed Ali Aghamiri stole identities, engaged in wire fraud and provided material support to a foreign terrorist organization, the DOJ said. Beginning in 2020, the three men participated in an Iranian military-backed hacking campaign that targeted U.S. government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and presidential campaigns since 2020, the ministry said. The men are not in custody.

Where are the hackers? The Justice Department said Friday it was offering up to $10 million as a reward for information about the activities or whereabouts of the three men. The department is also offering a financial reward for information that helps disrupt other foreign hacking campaigns like the one in which the men were involved.

What exactly happened to the Trump campaign? Earlier this year, Iranian hackers successfully accessed accounts linked to Trump's campaign, the DOJ claimed. Eventually, Microsoft, Google and US intelligence agencies confirmed that the hacker attack had taken place. Iran, meanwhile, has denied wrongdoing. The hackers used sophisticated spearphishing techniques to breach the security features of accounts associated with the campaign. Similar to phishing scams that trick group consumers into revealing personal information, spearphishing attacks are tailored to specific targets.

The hackers used accounts designed to look like they came from real current and former U.S. government officials to send emails to Trump campaign officials, the DOJ said. These emails contained links that, when opened, allowed the hackers to open the accounts they were targeting. They then sent emails from the compromised accounts to other accounts, continuing the spearphishing scheme.

Dig Deeper: Listen to Mary Muncy's report The world and everything in it Podcast about concerns that other countries such as China and Russia may try to interfere in the US election.