The Justice Department is investigating an attack this week on the social media platform X to find those who were behind an illegal effort to gain control of users' accounts. 

Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a post on X that "sophisticated cyber criminals" targeted hundreds of thousands of X users' accounts in a password-recovery attack. 

Blanche didn't provide further details of the cyberattack, but this type of attack usually refers to a technique that exploits the password recovery process to gain control of accounts. 

Blache said X disrupted the effort, and the Justice Department is "working closely" with the company to find the criminals behind it. 

"As we’ve shown, the Justice Department will stop at nothing in its pursuit of cyber fraudsters and scammers," Blanche said. "There is no refuge for those that perpetrate their criminal schemes from behind computer screens."