Disruptions From Cyberattack At White House Caused By Containment Efforts

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

In the latest data breach to hit the headlines, hackers who may have been working for the Russian government managed to breach unclassified Executive Office of the President (EOP) computer networks at the White House, causing disruptions as attempts were made to secure the computers and related data, according to IT News. The disruption in services was actually due not to the hacking itself, but was a result of the White House response to the breach.

A White House source confirmed the breach, stating that although hackers targeted the unclassified networks, they did not damage any systems. The hackers were unable to reach any tightly-secured classified data. The official, who asked to remain anonymous, said that “activity of concern” was discovered in the course of routine threat assessment following recent events. The official stated, “Any such activity is something we take very seriously. In this case, we took immediate measures to evaluate and mitigate the activity.”

“Our computers and systems have not been damaged, though some elements of the unclassified network have been affected,” the official said in an email to IT News.

The breach was first discovered two to three weeks ago after the U.S. was alerted to it by an ally, The Washington Post reported. Reuters also reported that suspicious activity had been reported on the network used by EOP employees. It quoted an unnamed official as saying that measures to counter the activity had resulted in “temporary outages and loss of connectivity for some EOP users.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, White House spokesman Josh Earnest explained, “There is an ongoing effort to evaluate that activity and to mitigate the risk associated with that activity.”

“The inconvenience…was not the result of this activity of concern, but rather was a response to it,” Earnest said.