Walmart Emails Racial Slurs to Random People, Blames 'External Bad Actor'

Walmart claims that an “external bad actor” is responsible for racial slurs emailed to random people. According to the company, the “bad actor” set up fake accounts on its website using the email addresses of random people, tricking the system into sending racist language to the unsuspecting recipients.

CBS News reports that Walmart has claimed that an “external bad actor” is responsible for a number of fake accounts set up to trigger automatic emails that addressed recipients with a racial slur.

Those behind the attack reportedly created new accounts for people whose emails were not previously attached to a Walmart online account, automatically sending them a “Welcome to Walmart” email that replaced the receiver’s name with a racial slur

The company’s internal systems were not breached and Walmart has reportedly been able to stop more emails from being sent. Walmart declined to address how many emails were sent.

A Walmart spokesperson said in an email to CBS:

We discovered that an external bad actor created false Walmart accounts with obvious intent to offend our customers. We were shocked and appalled to see these offensive and unacceptable emails. We’re looking into our sign-up process to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again. We’re also looking into all available means to hold those responsible accountable.

Recipients of the emails were quick to take to social media to complain about the emails with racist language in place of their names sent from the “help@Walmart.com” email address.