Phil Bredesen's Senate campaign fears it was hacked

Former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen's campaign for U.S. Senate told the FBI Thursday about a recent effort by someone who tried to trick it into wiring money.

In a letter addressed to Michael Gavin, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Memphis division, campaign lawyer Robert E. Cooper Jr. says someone pretending to be the campaign's media buyer asked for money to be wired to an international account.

The letter was first reported by the Associated Press.

"The sender knew that the campaign was preparing to purchase air time for a TV commercial and knew the dates of the proposed media buy. These emails urged the campaign to wire funds to an international bank account," the letter, which the campaign provided to the USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee, says.

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The campaign says it also received an email from someone pretending to be in the media team involved with producing the commercial, asking for the money to be transferred.

The letter notes that the person used an email address that was nearly identical to the actual media buyer

After the discovery, the campaign says it hired a cyber-security firm which found the impostor emails were registered through an Arizona-based registrar.

"Thanks to the alert action by campaign management, no funds were diverted," Cooper writes. "However, due to the fact that the imposters knew the media buy was imminent, we are concerned that there has been an unauthorized intrusion into the extended campaign operation."

Cooper said an internal review of the campaign is ongoing and Bredesen's team is willing to cooperate with any investigation by the FBI.

"We appreciate your efforts to protect our citizens and the integrity of our elections from these and similar online threats," concludes Cooper, who served as Attorney General under both the Bredesen and Haslam administrations.

As of publication, it is not clear who was behind the hacking.

Beyond the letter, Bredesen sent an email to his contact list Thursday telling people not to open a document in a Wednesday email that appears to be from him. He wrote that the fake emails have the domain “bredesens.com,” compared to his “bredesen.com” domain.

“On Wednesday afternoon you may have received an email, coming from a spoofed email address, that appeared to come from me, asking you to click a link to view a shared document,” Bredesen wrote.

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“Unfortunately, this email is part of a cyber intrusion into my extended campaign organization, including an unsuccessful attempt to divert campaign funds to offshore accounts. The FBI has been contacted and is involved.”

“I’m sorry for this inconvenience; this sort of thing is rapidly becoming one of the unpleasant facts of life,” the Bredesen email concludes.

Bredesen's campaign did not provide any additional statement.

The hacking effort comes amid continued concerns among the nation's intelligence officials about Russia's potential efforts to influence the 2018 election.

As recently as last month, Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, said to the Senate Intelligence Committee, "There should be no doubt that Russia perceives that its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 U.S. midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations."

Bredesen, who served as Nashville mayor in the 1990s, recently launched a $242,000 ad buy in his effort to fill the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Bob Corker.

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Also in the race are U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Dr. Rolando Toyos and perennial candidate Larry Crim, all of whom are seeking the Republican nomination.

A spokeswoman for Blackburn said they were not aware of a similar hacking effort with their campaign.

"We were troubled to hear reports the Bredesen campaign may have been hacked," said Andrea Bozek. "To our knowledge, our campaign has not been hacked. Cyber security is a serious issue, and we must do more to prevent bad actors from being able to access private information."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Reach Joel Ebert at jebert@tennessean.com or 615-772-1681 and on Twitter @joelebert29.