The United States is currently investigating a series of hacks that happened this past weekend. These hackers have broken into Federal Government networks and stolen other hacking tools.
What We Know:
- Hackers have recently broken into the networks of the Federal Government. These agencies include the Treasury and Commerce department, as revealed on Sunday, Dec 13th. This event happens to be a part of a month’s long global cyberespionage campaign. Now the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity department are hopping on board to investigate.
- The hacking was discovered after a major cybersecurity firm, FireEye, revealed that foreign entities had invaded their network and stole the company’s hacking tools. “This can turn into one of the most impactful espionage campaigns on record,” said cybersecurity expert Dmitri Alperovitch. According to ABC, many experts suspect Russia as responsible for the attack against FireEye, a major cybersecurity player whose customers include federal, state, and local governments and top global corporations.
- FireEye responded to the Sony and Equifax data breaches and helped Saudi Arabia thwart an oil industry cyberattack — and has played a key role in identifying Russia as the protagonist in numerous aggressions in the burgeoning netherworld of global digital conflict.
- Reuters released the first notice of hackers, less than a week after FireEye’s notification. Just last month, Donald Trump fired the director of the CISA, Chris Krebs, when he went against the president in vouching for the integrity of the presidential election. Krebs was fired right after making a statement saying that this election is the most secure in history that was deemed inaccurate by Donald Trump.
- Under Krebs’ direction, CISA has actively pushed back against baseless rumors and conspiracy theories surrounding the election. The Rumor Control page provides factual information refuting claims spread by people, including the president, about things that supposedly happened on November 3rd.
- The hackers primarily sought information related to certain government customers, FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia said in a statement, without naming them. He said there was no indication they got customer information from the company’s consulting or breach-response businesses or threat-intelligence data it collects. Mandia and FireEye have responded to the suspicions of Russia to be behind the incident. They have not released any names for who may be responsible.
As of late, the Department of Homeland Security is unsure as to who is responsible for this hack, but they are working to find out.
