Black Americans received racist text messages after the election telling them to pick cotton. The FBI is investigating what appears to be a large-scale campaign using spoofed numbers, possibly from a compromised carrier database. Messages traced to a VPN in Poland.
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The FBI is looking for the suspects behind a rash of racist text messages that were sent out soon after Tuesday's election and make references to slavery. Michelle Ross here now with more on who these messages were targeting and exactly what they said. Michelle.
Steve, it's believed these messages are spam, but they're hateful and upsetting many people. It's unclear where exactly they're being sent from, but one state's attorney general says they've traced it overseas. Racist text messages sent to Black Americans are being investigated by the FBI and Justice Department. Some of the texts, which received after the election read, "You have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation." These texts were sent to middle and high schoolers in Nyack, but Black Americans across the country, like Renee in Detroit, are also getting them.
A plantation to send us back to a plantation.
Cybersecurity expert Robert Siciliano says a database was likely compromised.
As we connect the dots with this particular spam, it looks like a mobile carrier might have been breached along with their demographic data and the users' cell phone numbers.
New York Attorney General Letitia James calling the messages disgusting and unacceptable. The attorney general in Louisiana says her office traced the messages to a VPN overseas.
My cyber team at the Louisiana Bureau of Investigations has discovered that these messages can be traced back to an encrypted virtual network that originated in Poland.
The sender posing as the Trump-Invance administration.
It's done from a series of servers that are programmed to send millions of text messages at the same time, generally from a spoofed number that may in fact be connected to an actual person. But that person didn't send those texts.
The messages are raising fear and anger in those receiving them.
We already have this racial tension going on. This whole election has brought out different feelings in everybody. But to make it a plantation and make it look racial, then I'm pissed.
And if you received a similar text message, officials are advising to not respond but to report it to the Attorney General's office.
