US officials said Friday that Iranian hackers who sent threatening messages to thousands of Americans earlier this month had managed to gain access to the data of several voters.
A joint statement by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Internet Security Agency of the Ministry of Homeland Security confirmed the authenticity of a portion of a video distributed as part of a disinformation campaign that met limited attention following its disclosure days ago.
The campaign consists of thousands of threatening messages sent randomly to American voters on behalf of a hard-line pro-President Donald Trump group, and contains a video clip explaining how hackers can wreak havoc by hacking into voter registration records.
Experts who examined the clip said it was an attempt to raise voter concern about the integrity of the elections. The Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security confirmed in a statement, "the perpetrator's success in obtaining voter registration data in at least one state."
The statement did not name the state, but the video clip showed what was supposed to be details of Alaska voters.
The US authorities are preparing to confront any potential cyber infiltration in the presidential elections scheduled for the third of November.
Earlier, US Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said that Russia and Iran had obtained some voter data, and that they were taking measures to try to interfere in the presidential elections, while Moscow and Tehran described the accusations as fabricated.
The US official said that foreign parties could use the data to try to "convey incorrect information to the electorate, hoping to confuse them and undermine confidence in American democracy."
These statements came after pro-Democratic voters in multiple states, including Florida and Arizona, received threatening e-mails asking them to vote for President Trump or else they would be prosecuted.