The PSNI say it appears the Twitter account of its chief constable has been hacked.
A tweet was posted on George Hamilton's account earlier on Thursday.
The head of PSNI's Cyber Crime Centre, Detective Chief Inspector Michael Harvey, said: "At this time we believe there is a possibility the account was maliciously hacked.
Advertisement
"Enquiries are currently ongoing. There are no further details at this time."
The @ChiefConPSNI Twitter account | Image: Twitter
Details on the content of the tweet were not available.
But it is understood the message contained a person's name, followed by a jumble of apparently random letters.
It was deleted within minutes.
The account has almost 12,000 followers on the social media site.