Massive cyberattack grows beyond US, heightening fears as it hits targets worldwide
- Microsoft president Brad Smith said victims of the cyberattack were also found in Belgium, Britain, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Spain and UAE
- James Lewis, vice-president at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said the attack may end up being the worst to hit the United States
Russia was “pretty clearly” behind a devastating cyberattack on several US government agencies that also hit targets worldwide, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday, as the list of victims worldwide continues to grow, heightening fears over computer security and espionage.
“There was a significant effort to use a piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside of US government systems,” Pompeo said on The Mark Levin Show.
“This was a very significant effort, and I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity.”
The breaches of US government agencies, first revealed by Reuters on Sunday, hit the Department of Homeland Security, the Treasury Department, State Department and Department of Energy. In some cases, the breaches involved monitoring emails, but it was unclear what hackers did while infiltrating networks, cybersecurity experts said.
Trump has not said anything publicly about the intrusion. He was being briefed “as needed”, White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern told reporters. National security adviser Robert O’Brien was leading interagency meetings daily, if not more often, he said.
“They’re working very hard on mitigation and making sure that our country is secure. We will not get into too many details because we’re just not going to tell our adversaries what we do to combat these things,” Morgenstern said.
No determinations have been made on how to respond or who was responsible, a senior US official said.