![]() ![]() Senate intelligence committee chairman Richard Burr said the government must overhaul its cybersecurity defenses. “It’s clear that a substantial improvement in our cyber databases and defences is perilously overdue,” Schiff said. ![]() He called the latest intrusion “among the most shocking because Americans may expect that federal computer networks are maintained with state-of-the-art defences”. US Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House select intelligence committee, said: “The last few months have seen a series of massive data breaches that have affected millions of Americans. The Chinese embassy in Washington responded that jumping to conclusions was “not responsible” and “counterproductive”.Įmbassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan said China had made great efforts to combat cyberattacks and that tracking such events conducted across borders was difficult.Ī Pentagon report in April said hackers associated with the Chinese government repeatedly targeted US military networks seeking intelligence during 2014. Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said the hackers were believed to be based in China.Ĭollins, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said the breach was “yet another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and focusing on what appears to be data that would identify people with security clearances”. Reports in the New York Times and Washington Post on Thursday, both citing unnamed sources in the federal government, reported Chinese hackers were behind the breach. “DHS is continuing to monitor federal networks for any suspicious activity and is working aggressively with the affected agencies to conduct investigative analysis to assess the extent of this alleged intrusion.” “The FBI is conducting an investigation to identify how and why this occurred,” the department of homeland security said in a statement on Thursday. “It’s irresponsible and unscientific to make conjectural, trumped-up allegations without deep investigation.” “We know that hacker attacks are conducted anonymously, across nations, and that it is hard to track the source,” Hong said. Authorities were looking into a possible Chinese connection, the news agency said, quoting a source close to the matter.Ĭhinese officials issued swift denials, with foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei branding the accusations irresponsible and unscientific at a news briefing on Friday. The OPM is the human resources department for the federal government and does checks for security clearances.Ī US law enforcement source told the Reuters news agency on Thursday night that a “foreign entity or government” was believed to be behind the attack.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |