Utah state officials have seen what they describe as a sharp uptick in attempts to hack into state computers in the last two years.
They think it is related to the NSA's data centre south of Salt Lake City.
The increase in attempted cyber-attacks began in early 2013 as international attention focused on the NSA's $US1.7 billion ($A2.19 billion) data warehouse.
Most of the attempts are likely innocuous. But cyber experts say its possible low-level hackers and maybe some foreign criminal groups erroneously think the state systems are linked to the NSA.
In reality, Utah state computers are connected in no way to the NSA facility, which is the federal agency's largest data storage centre in the United States.
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