FBI probes fake emails sent from internal server over possible cyber-attack

Warning of a possible cyber-attack, thousands of fake email messages were sent from one of the servers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The agency has launched probe in the matter.  

The incident on Saturday morning was a part of an "ongoing situation", the government agency said. It provided no further details.  

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The messages were purported to be from the Department of Homeland Security of US. It claimed to be a warning about a supposed threat. The mail was titled, "Urgent: Threat actor in systems."  

According to the non-profit anti-spam watchdog ‘Spamhaus’, recipients of the email were told that they were the target of a "sophisticated chain attack" from an extortion group, which was known as the Dark Overlord.  

In a tweet, Spamhaus said, "They are causing a lot of disruption because the headers are real, they really are coming from FBI infrastructure." It added that they did not include names or contact information of the sender.  

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More than 100,000 emails were sent out as per US media reports.  

In a statement, the FBI said on Saturday that it was "aware of the incident this morning involving fake emails from an @ic.fbi.gov email account".  

(With inputs from agencies)