Hacker Again Breaks Into FBI To Spread Disturbing Emails

The FBI's email has been hacked again by hackers. (photo: doc. unsplash)

JAKARTA – A hacker has hacked into the FBI's email account and sent thousands of emails from the agency warning recipients that they were under cyberattack on Saturday, November 13.

These scam emails hit 10.000 inboxes in two waves of 'spam' - just before 5 a.m. UTC (12.00 p.m. Indonesian Western Time) and another shortly after 7 a.m. UTC (14.00 p.m. Indonesian Western Time), according to Spamhaus, a European non-profit organization dedicated to tracking digital threats.

In a statement posted at a later date, the FBI noted that the directly affected hardware "was taken offline quickly."

These emails look like this:

Sending IP: 153.31.119.142 (https://t.co/En06mMbR88)

From: [email protected]

Subject: Urgent: Threat actor in systems pic.twitter.com/NuojpnWNLh

— Spamhaus (@spamhaus) November 13, 2021

However, the statement warned that the situation was still 'ongoing' and Spamhaus released a screenshot of one of the emails, warning that FBI intelligence was carrying out a 'sophisticated chain attack.'

Spamhaus - which describes itself as an 'international threat intelligence organization' - took to Twitter to announce that it had been "notified from the start of a frightening email... purported to be from the FBI/DHS [Department of Homeland Security]."

The federal agency's statement confirmed that the messages were sent to thousands of organizations from legitimate FBI email addresses but said "the affected software went offline immediately."

The email - which has the subject 'Urgent: Threat actor in systems' - was signed by DHS' Department of Cyber Threat Detection and Analysis.

"We can't physically interfere within 4 hours, which can be enough time to cause severe damage to your infrastructure," the email added.

The account also took to Twitter to warn that this 'fake warning email' was being 'sent to an address retrieved from the ARIN database.'

The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) database is a member-based nonprofit organization that assigns IP addresses, according to the registry's website.

The FBI statement then encourages recipients to report any other suspicious activity to ic3.gov or cisa.gov. The email in question is sent from [email protected].

Spamhaus, a European nonprofit dedicated to tracking digital threats, suggested that the hackers behind the emails might convince people to shut down their systems, flood the FBI with calls or a simple 'to lulz' - or laugh.

“Probably all of the above. Maybe something else!” the account tweeted, and added in a later post: “Who knows what goes through the minds of the people who do these things?”

"We are unable to provide additional information at this time," the FBI statement said. DailyMail.com contacted the FBI and DHS for comment.