Defence Ministry has been left flummoxed in the last two days by fake e-mails sent by an impersonator who stole the internet identity of the ministry's public relations personnel, causing concern in the official circles.

The e-mails, carrying a week-old press release regarding the funeral of Rear Admiral S S Jamwal who had died in an accidental firing in Kochi last week, were sent out yesterday with a teaser claiming it was the preliminary report of a Navy inquiry into his death.

Such inquiry reports of the Armed Forces are usually never shared with the media officially.

Two different mail identities -- [email protected] and [email protected] -- were used by the impersonator, who is still to be traced by the Defence Ministry, officials said here today.

The incident comes within months of reports that Chinese hackers had successfully breached the firewalls of India's Defence Ministry departments.

Jamwal had died last week when a pistol he was training with went off accidentally. However, Kochi police registered a case of "unnatural death", leading to speculation in the media that it could be a case of suicide.

The press release was mailed in a format usually adopted by the Ministry's Directorate of Public Relations (DPR) which led a few media persons who received it to believe the mail was an official one.

When the reporters made queries with the public relations department, it raised an alarm in the ministry, leading to an informal probe being ordered, officials said.

They were also forced to send out an advisory to the media, stating that their official mail identities still held good.

Interestingly, the two fake e-mails were sent to 100-odd media persons, though only a few received it.

The impersonator had imitated the official mail identities of the DPR, but had taken a lot of care and pain to make minor changes in the mailing addresses of most of the journalists on the ministry's mailing list before sending it.

Now, the DPR is seriously considering to shift to the National Informatics Centre (NIC) mailing address, the officials said.