Brazil's government suspects a remote intrusion into its national public-warning network after a fake "Extreme Alert" reached phones across several states early Saturday. The country's mass-alert platform has been taken offline while the Federal Police investigate.

Brazil's government says a suspected hacking attack hijacked the country's national emergency alert system early on Saturday, June 20, pushing an unauthorized "Extreme Alert" to mobile phones across several states. According to the National Secretariat for Protection and Civil Defense, the message contained the word "misanthropy," meaning hatred of humanity, and was sent without authorization before the system was taken offline at around 1:30 a.m. local time.

Multiple outlets, including Reuters, CNN and Bloomberg, reported the alert appeared on phones in major population centres, among them São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, as well as Bahia, Pará and Paraná. CNN reported the word was rendered as "misantropi4," with the final letter replaced by the number 4, a style of writing known as leetspeak that is common among hackers.

What lifted the incident above a prank was the channel it used. The message went out as an "Extreme Alert," the highest-priority class normally reserved for warning the public about severe weather or disasters. Alerts of that type override silent mode and trigger a loud alarm, which is why phones across several cities sounded in the middle of the night with no actual emergency taking place.

Brazil's National Telecommunications Agency, Anatel, which manages the Cellbroadcast platform used to distribute severe and extreme alerts, temporarily disabled the tool while authorities investigate. Civil defense bodies in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Paraná each said the alert had not been issued by their officials. The Rio de Janeiro Civil Defense attributed the message to instability in the IDAP/Cellbroadcast system, which it described as a platform under the responsibility of the National Civil Defense and the federal government.

The government characterised the event as probably a hacker attack and said the alert had been ordered remotely. According to Reuters, the case will be handed to the Federal Police, and officials said the notification system would be restored as soon as possible. National Secretary of Protection and Civil Defense Wolnei Wolff told a press conference that 10 alerts were tracked across various states, Bloomberg reported. Officials did not disclose how many phones were affected, though Bloomberg put the reach at millions of Brazilians.