In 2014, Russian hackers penetrated the White House Computer System and were able to read President Barack Obama’s unclassified emails. The White House confirmed the breach stating it took place and that it did not affect any classified information. The New York Times reported that the emails accessed contained highly sensitive information that includes schedules, email exchanges with ambassadors and diplomats, and debates about policy and legislation. The discovery of the hacking in October led to a partial shutdown of the White House email system.
A report on NBC is now saying that Russian hackers have launched a sophisticated attack on the US Department of Defense unclassified email system leaving thousands of employees without access to their emails for nearly two weeks. The Pentagon has said that they have been able to take the email system offline and are working to handle the attack, which begun on July 25th. The DOD has also said, no sensitive emails were compromised.
The Pentagon has acknowledged that the attack was a DDOS, orchestrated by an automated system that rapidly gathered massive amounts of data and within a minute distributed all the information to thousands of accounts on the Internet. The internet accounts, primarily on social media were encrypted with CNN saying the attack was not before precedented. The United States believes the same hackers were behind the attack on the White House last year. The Russian hackers called APT29, use a tactic which allows hackers to communicate with malware already infected into a computer without being detected.
