Russia suspected of hacking into White House computers
Some PCs of the White House computer network were found to be breached by hackers who are suspected of being working with the Russian government. This cyber attack which lasted for almost two weeks, caused in temporary disruptions to some services while White House IT security team worked to contain the intrusion. The hackers managed to breach only those systems which had unclassified data as per sources.
A White House official who asked The Washington Post not to disclose his identity said that the intruders did not damage any of the systems and that, to date, there is no evidence the classified network was hacked.
“In the course of assessing recent threats, we identified activity of concern on the unclassified Executive Office of the President network,” said one White House official. “We took immediate measures to evaluate and mitigate the activity. .?.?. Unfortunately, some of that resulted in the disruption of regular services to users. But people were on it and are dealing with it.”
All of the US intelligence, namely FBI, Secret Services and National Security Agency are working together to investigate the intrusion however no one is commenting on when and how the breach happened.
White House computers networks are regularly being targeted by cyber attacks, anti American interests and counter revolutionaries, however up to this day, all resulted in failed attempts.
“Such an intrusion was not expected. “This is a constant battle for the government and our sensitive government computer systems, so it’s always a concern for us that individuals are trying to compromise systems and get access to our networks.” said one another White house official.
The breach which was discovered 2-3 weeks back caused temporary disruptions in some of the computer network services. Some White House staff were asked to change their passwords and email systems were restarted after a minor delay however the White House Intranet and VPN access were shut down for some time.
The news of White Houses computer network intrusion came appeared just after a another report from the FireEye security research firm, which said that Russian hackers were involved in a sophisticated cyber espionage program were malicious codes were inserted into the computer networks of a firm harboring U.S. military secrets.
Earlier this month another security research firm had reported that Russia backed cyber criminals were involved in exploiting a unknown flaw in Microsoft’s Windows operating system called ‘Sandworm’ to spy on NATO and Governments across the Europe. The Sandworm 2 flaw is yet to be patched by Microsoft and all systems excluding Windows Server 2003 are vulnerable to this zero-day exploit.
One instance in which the media disclosed classified information negatively is when Bush claims that the report in the New York Times where they disclosed information about NSA illegally spying on terrorist communications. Because of the classified knowledge now has the power to be broadcast to the entire world, this carelessness of the media has potentially put the safety of the United States at high risk. There is no actual need to disclose this information to the public, and the only reason why it has been disclosed is to soothe the opportunistic side of the journalists who reported it.