Russian hackers suspected in Pentagon cyberattack
August 7, 2015
Russia-based hackers infiltrated the email network of the United States Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, shutting down the system for two weeks, US broadcaster NBC reported on Thursday.
The intrusion occurred around July 25 and affected some 4,000 military and civilian personnel. The Pentagon confirmed that the Joint Chiefs' email system was indeed shut down pending an investigation, but did not provide any further details on the attack.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body of senior US military officials who advise the president on military matters.
"We continue to identify and mitigate cybersecurity risks across our networks," said Pentagon spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Valerie Henderson. "With those goals in mind, we have taken the Joint Staff network down and continue to investigate. Our top priority is to restore services as quickly as possible."
"As a matter of policy and for operational security reasons, we do not comment on the details of cyber incidents or attacks against our networks," she added.
The attack relied on an automated system that rapidly gathered massive amounts of data, unnamed sources told NBC. It is unclear if the attack had been sanctioned by the Russian government.
"It was a spear phishing attack traced to [Russia]," an unnamed official told news agency Reuters. A second unnamed official said Russia was the leading suspect in the attack, but cautioned that it would take time for investigators to attribute blame.
Officials said no classified information was seized or compromised, but that the Pentagon opted to shut down the entire email system while it carried out its investigation.
News of the hack comes as it was revealed some 21 million US government employees, contractors and others had their personal information compromised in two separate attacks believed to be carried out by China.
And in late April, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter blamed Russian hackers for an attack on an unclassified US military network.
bw/cmk (Reuters, AFP)