Russian Cyber Attack Targets Pentagon Email Systems

The “sophisticated cyber intrusion” affected 4,000 civilian and military personnel of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Russian cyberattack on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff unclassified email system may be tied to a top Iranian military official’s visit to Moscow, Sen.

The Pentagon confirmed that the Joint Chiefs’ email system was taken offline pending an investigation but declined to elaborate.

Military officials assessed that the attack had a sophistication that indicates it came from a state-associated actor, and that the two likely suspects are Russian Federation and China. The Joint Chiefs’ classified system was reportedly not affected.

“It was a spearphishing attack traced to that country”, said the official, when asked about Russia’s possible involvement. The hackers are then believed to have sent a phishing email from a State Department account to access White House servers.

Meanwhile, a U.S. official was quoted by CNN saying that the methods used to crack the Pentagon’s network were something government investigators had not seen previously.

Sources told the network that the cyberattack relied on an automated system that rapidly gathered massive amounts of data.

A chunk of the US Department of Defense’s email system has been down for 11 days, following what appears to have been a successful attempt to hack it.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in April that Russian hackers had briefly broken into the Pentagon’s unclassified networks. Only unclassified email accounts were infiltrated. Hackers also used encrypted accounts on social media to coordinate the cyber assault.

While most reports point the finger towards Russian hackers, AFP is blaming the famed Chinese espionage program, which has been very active in the US lately, recently getting their hands on government personnel records.