Trump quiet on significant cyberattacks on US federal agencies posing 'grave risk': Report

As significant cyberattacks have continued to attack the federal agencies in America for several months, outgoing US President Donald Trump has chosen to remain silent on the possible breach that poses 'grave risk' to the governmnet. As per the CNN report, when Trump convened his Cabinet at the White House on December 16, the heads of agencies subjected to the intrusion were not present including the Department of Defense, the State Department, the Justice Department. Moreover, even after the meeting, the US President did not say anything about the cyberattack that went undetected by the intelligence agencies for several months. 

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. In a statement, late Wednesday (local time), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said that they have formed a Cyber Unified Coordination Group (UCG)  to coordinate the response of the entire government. 

While the attacks were revealed in the closing days of the Trump administration, the data breach reportedly amounts to a dramatic coda for a presidency clouded by doubts of Russian defence and failed attempts to rectify relations with Vladimir Putin. Trump, who has made the baseless claim of ‘election fraud’ his primary focus despite the alarming situation of COVID-19, has chosen to remain silent on the cyberattacks reportedly appearing to abdicate responsibility in the final weeks in the White House. However, the reprisals of the hacks might fall on President-elect Joe Biden. 

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FBI: Investigation on cyberattacks is ongoing

Meanwhile, the federal agencies also said that the FBI is investigating the cyberattacks along with gathering the intelligence surrounding the same. As per the statement, the FBI is currently engaging with both known as well as the suspected victims of the attacks to take more actions. The joint statement came after a US media reported on December 13 that the US Department of Homeland Security was the third federal department to face a significant cyberattack. 

“This is a developing situation, and while we continue to work to understand the full extent of this campaign, we know this compromise has affected networks within the federal government,” the statement said before adding, “As the lead for threat response, the FBI is investigating and gathering intelligence in order to attribute, pursue, and disrupt the responsible threat actors."

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