Alexander F. Thompson, 35, from Brentwood, Tennessee, was arrested Monday for allegedly planning a bomb attack on the Fred D. Thompson U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building in Nashville.
According to Metro Police, Thompson made several electronic threats, including emails and social media posts, in which he outlined plans to firebomb the buildings within two weeks.
The bomb threats were discovered by detectives on Sunday night, all of which were traced back to Thompson’s accounts. He was arrested at his workplace in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, where he reportedly admitted to making the threats and expressed an intention to carry them out.
Thompson has been charged with terrorism and false reporting, and is currently being held on a $100,000 bond. The investigation is ongoing.
Earlier last year, an unspecified number of federal agencies were hit by a cyberattacks, according to CNN.
A spokesman for Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said the agency is “providing support to several federal agencies that have experienced intrusions affecting their MOVEit applications,” but did not detail how many federal groups were hit or who was behind the attacks.
MOVEit “provides secure collaboration and automated file transfers of sensitive data and advanced workflow automation capabilities without the need for scripting. Encryption and activity tracking enable compliance with regulations such as PCI, HIPAA and GDPR,” reads the software’s website.
The attack followed warnings from former CISA director Jen Easterly that Chinese hackers were likely to target United States critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict between the two nations.
