The New York Times accidentally flooded email inboxes on Wednesday when a message destined for a few readers who had canceled their subscriptions ended up going out to millions.

The newspaper said the email inviting Times readers to renew their current subscription "at an exclusive rate of 50 percent off for 16 weeks" had ended up reaching 8.6 million readers by mistake.

"We regret the error," Times Co. spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said in a statement.

"This email should have been sent to a very small number of subscribers, but instead was sent to a vast distribution list made up of people who had previously provided their email address to The New York Times," she said.

Murphy told the newspaper that "no one's security has been compromised" by the email blast.

The Times had initially said the message appeared to be spam and was not sent by the newspaper.

Subscribers to the Times and non-subscribers alike took to Twitter in droves earlier Wednesday to report that they had received the email, which carried the subject line "Important information regarding your subscription."

The Times later sent an email to recipients of the previous message apologizing for "any confusion this may have caused."