Not even 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, DC is immune. Even the White House got breached. According to news sources, this breach has been going on for weeks.
These hackers are reported and suspected to be from the Russian government. Officials say the worst of it was just disruptions to certain services, and no damages were done. Cybersecurity squads worked to correct the cyber invasion attempt. Nobody is saying if any data was stolen. These kind of Russian hackers are also suspected of targeting NATO, Ukraine, and American defense contractors. The hacking was found earlier this month. Some employees were urged to change their passwords, but there were some minor email delays. The White House has long been prepared for this kind of breach. There was a major breach to the US military classified networks back in 2008, also suspected to be caused by Russian intelligence hackers. In the wake of this, the the US Cyber Command was founded. This organization has been committed to fighting foreign cyberattacks on behalf of private as well as government sectors.
This should be a lesson for us all. Well, first of all, thank goodness nothing was taken and no data was compromised. We should all be grateful for that. But it makes me wonder, if the White House, the most prestigious house in America, isn’t immune to breaches, how much hope can other houses in this nation have of cyber security? Now we all know relations between the US and Russia has been icy at best. In the last year or two alone, the two nations have jostled about every issue from Ukraine to the Edward Snowden revelations. And apparently, this jostle has gone on for several years. So we should be thankful for the US Cyber Command. The cold relationship between these two nations probably isn’t warming up anytime soon, more hacking attempts can be expected, and what can be done for protection?