Senator Mark R. Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: "Its unacceptable that it took almost a year after the election to notify states that their elections systems were targeted, but I'm relieved that DHS has acted upon our numerous requests and is finally informing the top elections officials in all 21 affected states that Russian hackers tried to breach their systems in the run up to the 2016 election." The states affected by the hacking attempts include Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington.

According to Homeland Security, the attackers only got into the systems of a handful of states despite targeting almost two dozen. In some cases, like in Illinois, the attackers altered voters' records and got away with their sensitive details, but investigators didn't find any evidence that they tampered with actual voting machines. Office of Intelligence and Analysis Cyber Division acting director Samuel Liles once said, however, that the attackers might not have altered vote counts, because their real purpose was to look for vulnerabilities to exploit.