Hackers increasingly targeting Trump campaign ahead of election: report

Hackers have been increasingly targeting websites of the reelection campaign of President Trump ahead of the November election, Reuters reported Tuesday.

According to July emails between senior company managers at security group Cloudflare obtained by Reuters, the attacks successfully disrupted two websites targeted by hackers on March 15 and June 6. Cloudflare was hired by the Trump campaign to defend websites against cyberattacks. 

“As we get closer to the election, attacks are increasing in both numbers [and] sophistication,” the emails read, according to Reuters, with the emails noting that the attacks were becoming increasingly sophisticated and were recorded at high levels in June. 

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment on the report. 

A spokesperson for Cloudflare declined to comment on the reported increased targeting of Trump campaign websites but pointed to the company’s work to protect campaigns and other organizations from attacks. 

“Cloudflare blocks an average of 72 billion cyber threats each day for the more than 25 million Internet properties that rely on us,” the spokesperson told The Hill in a statement. “As a policy, we do not discuss specific users of our service without their permission — that includes the majority of presidential campaigns from both parties this cycle.”

The spokesperson highlighted the company’s Cloudflare for Campaigns program, which offers U.S. political candidates free security services, as well as its Athenian Project, which provides free support for state and local election websites.

“Providing support to help ensure elections are not impacted by cyber attacks directly aligns with Cloudflare’s mission to help build a better Internet,” the Cloudflare spokesperson said. 

The Reuters report was published as concerns around election interference have ramped up. 

Earlier this month, a senior official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned that Russian actors were interfering in U.S. elections in favor of Trump, while Chinese and Iranian actors were interfering in favor of former Vice President Joe Biden. 

A Google threat researcher announced in June that a Chinese hacking group had targeted Biden campaign staff through the use of phishing emails, while an Iranian hacking group had used the same tactic to target Trump campaign staff.