Russian Federation Hacks Pentagon Computers

NBC reports that Russian Federation has successfully hacked the Pentagon’s email server.

The officials said no classified information was seized or compromised but that the Pentagon decided to shut down the entire email system during its investigation.

NBC News reported that Russian sources were responsible for the “sophisticated cyber intrusion”, which was carried out around July 25. No exact details of the social media used, the nature of the data pilfered nor the methods in which the data was distributed was revealed in the initial reporting.

But sources told the network, “It was clearly the work of a state actor.” It is unclear how such a determination might be made.

But while China cannot be ruled out definitively, the intrusion into the system is not typical of Chinese hackers, the official said.

Officials told The Daily Beast the attack involved “new and unseen approaches into the network”. The Pentagon expected to restore the system Thursday.

“Joint Staff unclassified networks for all users are now down”. Although the emails were unclassified, hackers still had access to President Obama’s personal emails which contained exchanges with ambassadors, diplomats, and policy questions.

The reports come just two months after the U.S. government announced that the Office of Personnel Management, the human resources arm of the federal government, was hacked back in May.

“Early this year the sensors that guard DoD [US Department of Defense] unclassified networks detected Russian hackers accessing one of our networks”, Carter said during a speech at Stanford University.