China is Alleged to be Behind Huge Government Hack
Posted by: Timothy Weaver on 06/08/2015 10:42 AM
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The Office of Personal Management reported that they were hacked and possibly 4 million employee’s info was stolen.
The breach was initially thought to have impacted the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Department of Interior, but further investigation has revealed that the victims come from nearly every government agency. Investigators are still trying to determine the extent of the hack.
The government has a system called Einstein to detect intrusions, which it did in, but not before millions of records had been copied and removed.
Zhu Haiquan, spokesman from the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC, basically said prove it. He said to CNN: "Cyberattacks conducted across countries are hard to track, and therefore the source of attacks is difficult to identify. Jumping to conclusions and making hypothetical accusations is not responsible and [is] counterproductive.”
US officials countered with a statement to CNN that hackers working as part of the Chinese military are likely behind this, as part of their efforts to build a massive database on American citizens, although it is unknown as to what purpose the info will be used for.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, said: "It is disturbing to learn that hackers could have sensitive personal information on a huge number of current and former federal employees—and, if media reports are correct, that information could be in the hands of China. [The office] says it 'has undertaken an aggressive effort to update its cybersecurity posture.' Plainly, it must do a better job, especially given the sensitive nature of the information it holds."
Source: InfoSecurity
The breach was initially thought to have impacted the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Department of Interior, but further investigation has revealed that the victims come from nearly every government agency. Investigators are still trying to determine the extent of the hack.The government has a system called Einstein to detect intrusions, which it did in, but not before millions of records had been copied and removed.
Zhu Haiquan, spokesman from the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC, basically said prove it. He said to CNN: "Cyberattacks conducted across countries are hard to track, and therefore the source of attacks is difficult to identify. Jumping to conclusions and making hypothetical accusations is not responsible and [is] counterproductive.”
US officials countered with a statement to CNN that hackers working as part of the Chinese military are likely behind this, as part of their efforts to build a massive database on American citizens, although it is unknown as to what purpose the info will be used for.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, said: "It is disturbing to learn that hackers could have sensitive personal information on a huge number of current and former federal employees—and, if media reports are correct, that information could be in the hands of China. [The office] says it 'has undertaken an aggressive effort to update its cybersecurity posture.' Plainly, it must do a better job, especially given the sensitive nature of the information it holds."
Source: InfoSecurity
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