It became known that last week unknown hackers hacked into the external e-mail system of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Following the successful attack, the hackers reportedly sent out tens of thousands of emails on behalf of the FBI warning of a possible cyberattack. FBI representatives confirmed the incident and said that the agency, together with the Agency for Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, is investigating its circumstances. “This is the current situation, and at present we can not provide additional information,” – commented on the issue of the FBI spokesman.
The FBI has several email systems. It appears that an external system has been hacked, which is publicly available and is used by employees of the department to interact with the public. To transfer classified information, FBI agents use internal mail, which this time the hackers could not get to.
The hackers sent out emails with the subject “Urgent: Attacker in the System” on behalf of the US Department of Homeland Security. The report stated that the attacker was information security specialist Vinny Troia, who had been investigating incidents involving the hacker group The Dark Overlord last year. It is noted that the letters did not contain malicious files, so the purpose of the cybercriminals’ attack could have been to discredit the name of the specialist.