The United States Department of Justice has indicted two Iranians for their alleged involvement in efforts to undermine the integrity of the US election in 2020.
The US alleges that between August and November of 2020, a group of Iranian government-sponsored hackers obtained or attempted to obtain voter information from 11 state websites. Prosecutors accused Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi, 24, and Sajjad Kashian, 27, of participation in the cyber campaign, which managed to steal details of 100 000 American voters.
According to Al-Monitor News they also sent thousands of emails purporting to be from the white nationalist Proud Boys group to registered Democrats threatening physical harm if they did not switch parties and vote for then-President Donald Trump.
According to court documents, the two Iranians also posed as Proud Boys volunteers in emails to Republican members of Congress, Trump campaign staff, White House advisers and members of the media. Their emails claimed Democrats were planning to exploit “serious security vulnerabilities” in state voting sites to “edit mail-in ballots or even register nonexistent voters.”
The State Department is offering a reward of $10 million for information on the two men’s activities.