Hackers leak White House information

Washington: Unclassified White House computer networks were breached by hackers recently, resulting in temporary disruptions to some services with the Russian government thought to be behind the intrusion, according to a media report.

“In the course of assessing recent threats, we identified activity of concern on the unclassified executive office of the President network,”a White House official was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.

“We took immediate measures to evaluate and mitigate the activity...Unfortunately, some of that resulted in the disruption of regular services to users. But people were on it and are dealing with it,” he said.

White House officials said that the intruders did not damage any of the systems and that, to date, there is no evidence the classified network was hacked.

The FBI, Secret Service and National Security Agency are involved in the investigation, the report said. “Hackers thought to be working for the Russian government breached the unclassified White House computer networks in recent weeks...resulting in temporary disruptions to some services,” WP said.

Recent reports by security firms have identified cyber espionage campaigns by Russian hackers thought to be working for the government.

Targets have included NATO, the Ukrainian government and the US defense contractors. Russia is regarded by the US officials as being in the top tier of states with cyber-capabilities.

In the case of White House, the nature of the target is consistent with a state-sponsored campaign.

The breach was discovered two to three weeks ago.

The Russian intelligence service was believed to have been behind a breach of the US military's classified networks, which was discovered in 2008.