The US nuclear weapons agency is reportedly targeted by hackers as part of a massive cyber security breach against federal agencies and critical infrastructure.
Politico reported on Thursday that hackers targeted the Department of Energy [DOE] and its National Nuclear Security Administration [NNSA], which secures the US nuclear weapons stockpile.
The attack was part of a massive cyber campaign that affected at least half a dozen federal agencies, including the Treasury, State, War and Commerce Departments, Bloomberg reported.
The US has a total of 3,800 nuclear weapons, many of which were produced during the early years of the Cold War and are overseen by the NNSA.
US President-elect Joe Biden described the cybersecurity breach as a matter of great concern, saying his team would impose “substantial costs” on parties responsible for such attacks.
Biden promised he “will make cybersecurity a top priority at every level of government, and we will make dealing with this breach a top priority from the moment we take office.”
“But a good defense isn’t enough; we need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant cyber-attacks in the first place,” Newsweek reported, quoting from a statement sent Biden’s transition team. “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.”
Senator Deb Fischer, chair of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, said that she was “troubled” by reports of the security breach.
“Our nuclear deterrent is the bedrock of our national security. The NNSA’s infrastructure and computer systems play a vital role and must be protected,” she said in a statement.
Earlier this week, the US Department of Homeland Security and thousands of businesses were targeted by a sweeping hacking campaign that officials suspect was directed by the Russian government.
Emails sent by officials at DHS, which oversees border security and defense against hacking, were monitored by the hackers as part of the sophisticated series of breaches, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters Monday.
Technology company SolarWinds, which was the key steppingstone used by the hackers, said up to 18,000 of its customers had downloaded a compromised software update that allowed hackers to spy unnoticed on businesses and agencies for almost nine months.
The United States issued an emergency warning on Sunday, ordering government users to disconnect SolarWinds software which it said had been compromised by “malicious actors.”
‘Israel’ Is Afraid, Fears More Advanced Cyberattacks
‘Israel’ is under attack and it is growingly afraid after hackers have targeted at least 80 ‘Israeli’ firms, with more possible attacks are still expected.
The attack, led by a group called Pay2Key, is the latest in a string of cybercampaigns targeting the Zionist entity. However, the latest move is said to have financial motives – further blurring the lines between hacktivism and cybercrime.
Omri Segev Moyal, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Profero, claimed that “The Iranian attack has been in the works for months, and is only growing and continuing to inflict damage on the ‘Israeli’ market. Much like the tit-for-tat dynamic of war,” he told Haaretz.
“The ‘Israeli’ economy is the ‘home’ front in this war, and we need to defend it,” he added.
“Winter is coming,” Segev Moyal tweeted in an attempt to warn others in the Zionist entity.
“We cannot and should not underestimate them,” said Segev Moyal, adding that “most of the ‘Israeli’ market is not prepared to deal with such an attack.”
But what do cyber-experts mean when they talk about ideologically driven cybercrime? We spoke to the team that first managed to locate Pay2Key and linked it back to Iran to try to understand.
Pay2Key was discovered in November in a joint research project by two ‘Israeli’ cyber security firms, Check Point and Whitestream. Initially, the group was thought to be another band of cybercriminals active in the field of ransomware, albeit a very advanced one.
The hacker group was extremely careful to delete its tracks. The combination of the two is a new and impressive skill that has rarely been seen by run-of-the-mill cyber criminals.
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