White House Network Hacked By Russia?

Russian hackers are suspected of breaching unclassified White House computers in recent days, according to anonymous sources familiar with the investigation. The intrusion resulted in the temporary disruption of some of the services, as cybersecurity teams tried to control the situation.

However, officials believe the classified network was not breached, a report in the Washington Post reveals. Speaking anonymously, sources say the hackers did not damage any of the White House systems.

“In the course of assessing recent threats, we identified activity of concern on the unclassified Executive Office of the President network. 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.”

Even though the White House is not publicly commenting on who could be behind the recent hacking, cyber security companies suspect Russians working for the government are responsible. According to these reports, the same groups are responsible for recent security breaches at NATO, the Ukrainian government, and U.S. defense contractors.

The White House breach — discovered two weeks ago — is consistent with a state-sponsored attack, sources say. To err on the side of caution, staffers were asked to change their passwords, after Intranet and VPN access was unavailable for a period of time. However, email was working, except for some delay in the system.

Though worrisome to many, White House officials say this sort of hacker intrusion is something they deal with on a regular basis.

“On a regular basis, there are bad actors out there who are attempting to achieve intrusions into our system. 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.”

This is not the first time Russian hackers are accused of breaching U.S. government agencies. In 2008, a breach of military classified networks was attributed to groups in the European country. It took months to clean up computers and contain the breach, in an operation dubbed “Buckshot Yankee.”

CNN reports that President Obama’s staff members classify the White House hacking as less serious than it could have been, even though the cyber attack affected a computer network used by one of Obama’s top advisers.

There has been no official comment on the White House hacker attack, but we can expect reporters will ask questions at the daily briefing on Wednesday. The FBI, Secret Service, and the National Security Agency (NSA) are currently part of the investigation. Russia and the U.S. have recently been at odds over several foreign policy issues, including the situation in Ukraine.

[Image via Shutterstock]