{"id":28657,"date":"2020-12-18T20:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T14:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gorkhasansar.com\/?p=28657"},"modified":"2020-12-18T20:00:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T14:15:12","slug":"us-cyber-attack-us-energy-department-confirms-it-was-hit-by-sunburst-hack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gorkhasansar.com\/?p=28657","title":{"rendered":"US cyber-attack: US energy department confirms it was hit by Sunburst hack"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p><b class=\"css-14iz86j-BoldText e5tfeyi0\">The US energy department is the latest agency to confirm it has been breached in what is being described as the worst-ever hack on the US government.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>The department is responsible for managing US nuclear weapons, but said the arsenal&#8217;s security had not been compromised.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>Tech giant Microsoft also said on Thursday that it had found malicious software in its systems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>Many suspect the Russian government is responsible. It has denied any role.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>The US treasury and commerce departments are among the other targets of the sophisticated, months-long breach, which was first acknowledged by officials on Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-mysbf6-ComponentWrapper-CrossheadComponentWrapper e1xue1i84\" data-component=\"crosshead-block\">\n<h2 class=\"css-qozapo-StyledHeading e1fj1fc10\">How has the US government responded?<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>President Donald Trump is yet to comment on the cyber-attacks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>Meanwhile, US President-elect Joe Biden has vowed to make cyber-security a &#8220;top priority&#8221; of his administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>&#8220;We need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant cyber-attacks in the first place,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We will do that by, among other things, imposing substantial costs on those responsible for such malicious attacks, including in coordination with our allies and partners.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>America&#8217;s top cyber agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (Cisa), gave a stark warning on Thursday, saying that addressing the intrusion would be &#8220;highly complex and challenging&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>It said &#8220;critical infrastructure&#8221; had been damaged, federal agencies and private sector companies compromised, and that the damage posed a &#8220;grave threat&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"unordered-list-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<div class=\"css-1pzprxn-BulletListContainer e5tfeyi3\">\n<ul role=\"list\">\n<li><a class=\"css-yidnqd-InlineLink e1no5rhv0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/technology-55321643\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SolarWinds: Why the Sunburst hack matters<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"css-yidnqd-InlineLink e1no5rhv0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/technology-55318815\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">More US government agencies hacked<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>The hack began in at least March 2020, and those responsible had &#8220;demonstrated patience, operational security, and complex tradecraft&#8221;, the Cisa said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>The agency did not identify what information had been stolen or exposed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>Addressing the attack on the energy department, spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes confirmed that it was responding to a cyber breach but said &#8220;the malware has been isolated to business networks only&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-uf6wea-RichTextComponentWrapper e1xue1i83\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"css-83cqas-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi2\">\n<p>She said security functions at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which oversees US nuclear weapons, had not been affected. BBC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US energy department is the latest agency to confirm it has been breached in what is being described as the worst-ever hack on the US government. The department is responsible for managing US nuclear weapons, but said the arsenal&#8217;s security had not been compromised. Tech giant Microsoft also said on Thursday that it had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbMGvT-7sd","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gorkhasansar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gorkhasansar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gorkhasansar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gorkhasansar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gorkhasansar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gorkhasansar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gorkhasansar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gorkhasansar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gorkhasansar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}