US prosecutors on Thursday charged two Iranian hackers for their part in a disinformation campaign during the 2020 US presidential election that targeted voters, members of Congress and a media company.

The US Treasury imposed sanctions on a total of six Iranians and a group from the country that it accuses of trying to influence the result of the election.

What are the charges?

The men, Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi, 24, and Sajjad Kashian, 27, were allegedly involved in trying to obtain confidential US voting information from a state election website.

Prosecutors accused the Iranians of trying to get access to an unnamed US media company's computer network to spread false claims about the election. The FBI worked with the company to foil the plot.

The hackers sent Facebook messages to Republican members of Congress and staff affiliated with Donald Trump's reelection campaign, pretending to be part of a far-right Proud Boys group, the indictment alleges.

It accused the men of trying to access voter registration data from 11 state websites.

The Iranians managed to download information of over 100,000 people, writing carefully designed messages from both political parties to try to confuse voters, the US alleges.

What were the hackers' goals?

Through emails, videos and Facebook messages, US prosecutors allege the Iranians of trying to get citizens to vote for Trump and lose faith in the electoral system.

These included emails threatening to "come after" citizens who didn't vote for Trump, said the indictment.

One video they produced showed an individual hacking into state voting websites to register fraudulent absentee ballots, the US said.

But senior US law enforcement officials said they had no evidence the effort changed voting results.

Even though the two Iranians are still in their home country, the US hopes the charges will hinder their ability to travel.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the head of the Justice Department's national security division, said the Iranians "waged a targeted, coordinated campaign to erode confidence in the integrity of the U.S. electoral system and to sow discord among Americans."

Olsen said that the investigation showed "how foreign disinformation campaigns operate and seek to influence the American public."

jc/wd (Reuters, AP)