Pompeo says Russia 'pretty clearly' involved in significant cyberattacks on US agencies

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on December 18 said that Russia was “pretty clearly” involved in the major cyberattacks on the federal agencies of the country. After the White House flagged a cyberattack that had been impacting the government agencies for several months recently, Pompeo told the Mark Levin Show that the there was a “significant effort” to use third-party software to embed the foreign code inside the systems. Therefore, US Secretary of State concluded that the extra effort indicates Russians being involved in the activity. 

“There was a significant effort to use a piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside of US government systems,” said Mike Pompeo before adding, “This was a very significant effort, and I think it's the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity.”

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Cyberattack on US federal agencies

In one of the latest blows to US President Donald Trump’s administration in its closing days, as many as 12 federal agencies were crippled with a massive cyberattack which is reportedly described as the biggest breach in several years. Triggering speculation of Russian hackers’ involvement, US officials reportedly said that the hacks have been ongoing for several months allowing the ones who breached the websites to monitor as well as read US’ confidential emails. 

Among the impacted agencies are the US Treasury Department, the US Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, the State Department and National Institutes of Health with their security being compromised. Recently, the FBI called the cyberattacks “a developing situation”. In a joint statement, FBI, CISA and ODNI said on December 16  that they are putting together a unified response to the breaches while understanding its effect on the networks within the agencies. 

The attack reportedly came to the notice of intelligence officers after being discovered by a cybersecurity company called FireEye. As per reports, it started back in March when the nation along with the entire world was rocked with rising infections of COVID-19. The hackers managed to insert malware into software updates that were reportedly being sent to the US government as well as its partners in the private sectors through an IT company named Solar Winds. 

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