So far it has not been mentioned who would be behind the attack.
Photo: JACK GUEZ/Getty Images
The networks of the United States government were affected by a cyberattack that affected several federal agenciesAgency for Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security director Jen Easterly confirmed Thursday.
According to ACB News, CISA, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, previously identified a software security hole that was believed to have been compromised in an attack.
An electronic file transfer application, MOVEit Transfer, is believed to be the target of the broader cyber intrusion, said an official.
A spokesman for Mandiant, the cyber intelligence arm of Google Cloud, said government data was stolen in the attack. CISA officials declined to say how many federal agencies were affected and did not say who was behind the attack.
Easterly downplayed the severity of the attack, saying the intrusion was not as damaging as the attack on SolarWinds. that affected government systems in 2020.
The hack carried out on the US firm SolarWinds, described as the largest-scale and most sophisticated computer attack ever seen, put the security systems of major firms and government agencies to the test.
In addition, on that occasion, the attackers compromised systems of companies such as Microsoft, one of the main providers of consumer computing products.
Although the losses to the affected firms were not detailed, it is estimated that the attack could have cost insurance companies at least $90 million.
However, the one perpetrated on this occasion was described by a senior CISA official as “small” in scope.
Federal authorities previously published a joint advisory noting that file transfer software was vulnerable to attack. At the time, CISA and the FBI said the app was vulnerable to ransomware attacks in which data is locked or stolen and payment is demanded in return.
“The FBI, along with our partners at CISA, works diligently to share information in a timely manner to enable organizations to better protect themselves from malicious cyber actors,” Bryan Vorndran, deputy director of the FBI’s cyber division, said last week.
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