Hackers compromised a Federal Bureau of Investigation email system on Saturday and sent tens of thousands of messages warning of a possible cyberattack, according to the agency and security specialists.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
Fake emails appeared to come from a legitimate FBI email address ending in @ic.fbi.gov, the FBI said in a statement.
A copy of an email posted by Spamhaus on Twitter showed a subject line of "Urgent: Threat actor in systems" and appeared to end with a sign-off from the Department of Homeland Security.
Although the hardware impacted by the incident "was taken offline quickly upon discovery of the issue," the FBI said, "This is an ongoing situation."
The hackers sent tens of thousands of emails warning of a possible cyberattack, threat-tracking organization Spamhaus Project said on its Twitter account.
The FBI said Sunday that hackers did not access any data or personal information on its network. The agency said it has fixed the software vulnerability that allowed the attack.
The fake emails originated from an FBI-operated server, which was dedicated to pushing notifications to the Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal (LEEP), which the FBI uses to communicate with state and local agencies. The compromised server was not part of the FBI's corporate email service, the FBI added.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
