The Washington Post reports that computers at the White House were hacked recently by people possibly working for the Russian government. The NSA and FBI are investigating the attack, which we only found out about thanks to information from an “ally”.
According to the report, which is based on information from unnamed sources, security officials were able to contain the breaches relatively quickly, and that no classified networks were compromised.
Luckily, it appears the hack didn’t cause too much of a disruption. According to the WaPo:
The breach was discovered two to three weeks ago, sources said. Some staffers were asked to change their passwords. Intranet or VPN access was shut off for a while, but the email system, apart from some minor delays, was never down, sources said.
While disturbing, the attacks are hardly surprising. Like China, Russia wants to know all of the secret information the US government knowns. And the United States is obviously conducting identical campaigns against foreign governments as well.
If the White House can get hacked, no one is safe. So, uh, maybe lock down your passwords and watch out for the phishy links in your email. [The Washington Post]