How the U.S. thinks Russians hacked the State Department & White House
How the U.S. thinks Russians hacked the White House
By Evan Perez and Shimon Prokupecz, CNN
Updated 7:06 PM ET, Tue April 7, 2015
Washington (CNN)—Russian hackers behind the damaging
cyber intrusion of the State Department in recent months used that perch to
penetrate sensitive parts of the White House computer system, according to U.S.
officials briefed on the investigation.
While the White House has said the breach only affected
an unclassified system, that description belies the seriousness of the
intrusion. The hackers had access to sensitive information such as real-time
non-public details of the president's schedule. While such information is not
classified, it is still highly sensitive and prized by foreign intelligence
agencies, U.S. officials say.
The White House in October said it noticed suspicious
activity in the unclassified network that serves the executive office of the
president. The system has been shut down periodically to allow for security
upgrades.
The FBI, Secret Service and U.S. intelligence agencies
are all involved in investigating the breach, which they consider among the
most sophisticated attacks ever launched against U.S. government systems. The
intrusion was routed through computers around the world, as hackers often do to
hide their tracks, but investigators found tell-tale codes and other markers
that they believe point to hackers working for the Russian government.
A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to
comment. Neither the U.S. State Department nor the Russian Embassy immediately
responded to a request for comment.
Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama's deputy national
security adviser, said the White House's use of a separate system for
classified information protected sensitive national security-related items from
being obtained by hackers.
"We do not believe that our classified systems were
compromised," Rhodes told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday.
"We're constantly updating our security measures on
our unclassified system, but we're frankly told to act as if we need not put
information that's sensitive on that system," he said. "In other
words, if you're going to do something classified, you have to do it on one
email system, one phone system. Frankly, you have to act as if information
could be compromised if it's not on the classified system."
To get to the White House, the hackers first broke into
the State Department, investigators believe.
The State Department computer system has been bedeviled
by signs that despite efforts to lock them out, the Russian hackers have been
able to reenter the system. One official says the Russian hackers have
"owned" the State Department system for months and it is not clear
the hackers have been fully eradicated from the system.
As in many hacks, investigators believe the White House
intrusion began with a phishing email that was launched using a State
Department email account that the hackers had taken over, according to the U.S.
officials.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, in a
speech at an FBI cyberconference in January, warned government officials and
private businesses to teach employees what "spear phishing" looks
like.
"So many times, the Chinese and others get access to
our systems just by pretending to be someone else and then asking for access,
and someone gives it to them," Clapper said.
The ferocity of the Russian intrusions in recent months
caught U.S. officials by surprise, leading to a reassessment of the
cybersecurity threat as the U.S. and Russia increasingly confront each other
over issues ranging from the Russian aggression in Ukraine to the U.S. military
operations in Syria.
The attacks on the State and White House systems is one
reason why Clapper told a Senate hearing in February that the "Russian
cyberthreat is more severe than we have previously assessed."
The revelations about the State Department hacks also
come amid controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a
private email server to conduct government business during her time in office.
Critics say her private server likely was even less safe than the State system.
The Russian breach is believed to have come after Clinton departed State.
But hackers have long made Clinton and her associates
targets.
The website The Smoking Gun first reported in 2013 that a
hacker known as Guccifer had broken into the AOL email of Sidney Blumenthal, a
friend and advisor to the Clintons, and published emails Blumenthal sent to
Hillary Clinton's private account. The emails included sensitive memos on
foreign policy issues and were the first public revelation of the existence of
Hillary Clinton's private email address now at the center of controversy:
hdr22@clintonemail.com. The address is no longer in use.
Wesley Bruer contributed to this report
Comments
Post a Comment