(Newswire.net — October 30, 2014) Washington, D.C. — A sustained cyber-attack that lasted almost two weeks has been detected on the computer network used by officials of the Executive Office of the President.
The White House officials have not disclosed who might be responsible for the attack.
An official told Reuters that there is no reason so far to believe the classified network has been hit as well, but “any such activity is something that we take very seriously,” official said.
The attacked White House EOP network is routinely struck with cyber attacks, however, the one revealed Tuesday lasted consistently for nearly a two weeks, which is somewhat unusual. “
“We are still assessing the activity of concern, and we are not in a position to provide any additional details at this time,” the White House official said in a statement.
The damage of this attack had led to limited access to some EOP network services, and resulted in delayed mails, but not all massages and not to all people, pool reporter Steven T. Dennis of CQ Roll Call told Huffington Post. “Some people are getting pool reports significantly before other people,” he said.
“Our computers and systems have not been damaged, though some elements of the unclassified network have been affected. The temporary outages and loss of connectivity that users have been experiencing is solely the result of measures we have taken to defend out networks,” said official in an internal White House email, published by the Post.
Cyber terrorism is one of the biggest threats to national security for government and business computer systems, said US President Barack Obama, worried that “cybercriminals could literally wipe out the identities of millions of people through some breach of government systems and that could lead to massive chaos,” Fox Business Network reported.
President Obama added that he expects cyber-terrorism only to grow in the years ahead, and advised that cyber terrorism will be one the biggest concerns for whoever is president after him.