An unclassified White House network has been compromised by hackers thought to be associated with the Russian government.–PC Pitstop
White House Computers Hacked by Russians
By Stu Sjouwerman, for KnowBe4.com Security Awareness Training
The White House told the press this week that its Executive Office of the President (EOP) network was hacked a few weeks ago, and pooh poohed the data breach by pointing out that it was “only” an unclassified network and the hackers were committing “fairly standard espionage.” Yeah, sure.
The fact an unclassified White House network has been penetrated is an epic fail, and that they are downplaying the hack indicates it is probably a lot worse than they are admitting. To add insult to injury, they did not even know until a friendly foreign government told them about the compromise. Ouch.
It’s likely that this hack was a staging area so the hackers could get into a classified network, potentially using something similar to the AirHopper keylogger which allows bridging the air gap using FM radio signals. Here is a video that demonstrates this very scary new technology:
Part of the mitigation procedures included white house staffers having to change their passwords, and some intranet and VPN access was being shut off temporarily. Their email systems seems to have been shut down for a while as well, while they responded to the breach.
The Washington Post reported that Russian hackers may be to blame, which is an educated guess at this point, but very likely spot on as the Post report goes on to mention recent hacking campaigns that have targeted NATO, the Ukrainian government and US defense contractors – and draws a parallel with those incidents.
The FBI, Secret Service and National Security Agency are all involved in the investigation. White House officials are not commenting on who was behind the intrusion or how much data, if any, was taken.
