FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (AP) – Officials at Framingham State College say they have alerted the FBI after finding that hackers had broken into the school’s e-mail system and sent threatening messages across the country.

Patrick Laughran, the college’s chief information technology officer, tells the MetroWest Daily News that the e-mails’ content was “threatening someone in exchange for money.”

He says they have been traced to China, Russia and the Sudan.

He says about 30 campus e-mail accounts were compromised.

It is not known how many messages were sent, but the school received between 50 to 70 phone calls from recipients of the threatening e-mails.

The security has largely been repaired.