Hackers gained access to the FBI’s email system and used an account to send hundreds of emails. More cyberattacks are on the horizon.
On Saturday, hackers gained access to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s external email system. According to the Spamhaus Project, which tracks spam and associated cyber dangers, hackers sent out tens of thousands of emails from an FBI email account warning about a possible cyberattack during the cybercrime. The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are “aware of the issue this morning involving bogus emails from a @ic.fbi.gov email address,” according to the FBI.
“This is a continuing matter, and we are unable to provide any additional information at this time,” said the FBI in a statement.
According to Austin Berglas, head of professional services at the cybersecurity company BlueVoyant, the FBI has various email systems, and the one that appears to have been hacked on Saturday is a public-facing one that agents and employees can use to interact with the public. When sending sensitive information, agents must use a separate email system, he explained.
“This is not a secret system that has been penetrated,” said Berglas, a former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s cyber branch in New York. “This is an account that is visible to the public and is used to share and communicate unclassified material.”
According to Spamhaus, the attacks began at midnight Saturday in New York, with a followup campaign beginning at 2 a.m. According to the NGO, the spam mails eventually reached at least 100,000 mailboxes.
The subject line of the emails read, “Urgent: threat actor in systems.” The communication was signed by the US Department of Homeland Security and cautioned recipients that the threat actor looked to be cybersecurity specialist Vinny Troia, who wrote an investigation into the hacker group The Dark Overlord last year.
According to Spamhaus, there was no malware attached to the emails. The hackers could have been aiming to slander Troia or staged a nuisance assault to swamp the FBI with calls, according to the organization.
Troia did not react to a comment request. The FBI advised consumers to exercise caution and report any unusual activities.