An extensive Russian digital spying effort that targeted at least five federal agencies was made public earlier this week. The affected agencies include the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department. According to The New York Times, American officials only became aware of the breach when a private security firm raised it in recent weeks. The Russian hack came as about 18,000 users, both governmental and private, downloaded a compromised software update by the company SolarWinds.
The Russian Embassy in Washington called the reports of the hack “baseless.”
More from The Washington Post:
Officials were scrambling over the weekend to assess the nature and extent of the intrusions and implement effective countermeasures, but initial signs suggested the breach was long-running and significant, the people familiar with the matter said.
The Russian hackers, known by the nicknames APT29 or Cozy Bear, are part of that nation’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, and they breached email systems in some cases, said the people familiar with the intrusions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The same Russian group hacked the State Department and the White House email servers during the Obama administration.
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