The US nuclear weapons agency denounced that it was the victim of a large-scale cyber attack

The Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration, which deals with the United States’ nuclear weapons arsenal, reported Thursday that has evidence that hackers have accessed your networks as part of a extensive espionage operation that has affected at least half a dozen federal agenciesreported the news site Politics.

On Thursday, officials from the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) began coordinating alerts from their regulatory agencies when they discovered suspicious activity in networks owned by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico and Washington, the DOE Safe Transportation Office, and the Richland Field Office.

The hackers have done more damage to the FERC than to the other agencies, officials said but did not elaborate.

According to the federal investigation, which aims to determine which hackers have managed to break into agency systems, It is not yet known whether the attackers were able to gain access to anything. Officials consulted by Politics they said what they may not know the full extent of the damage for “weeks on end.”

The attack on the DOE is the clearest sign yet that the Hackers could gain access to networks that are central to US national security. The hackers are believed to have gained access to federal agency networks by compromising software company SolarWinds, which sells IT management products to hundreds of private and government customers.

The officials had planned inform the energy committees, the energy and water development subcommittees, the armed forces committees – all from both houses – and the delegations from the state of New Mexico and Washington of the leak on Thursdayofficials said.

The FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence acknowledged that the cybersecurity campaign is “underway” in a joint statement released Wednesday, saying they had learned of the incident in recent days. .

“This is an ongoing situation, and while we continue to work to understand the full extent of what happened, we know the episode has impacted federal government networks.”says the statement issued today.

The NNSA is responsible for managing America’s nuclear weapons, and while it receives little attention, it is allocated a large portion of the DOE’s budget. Likewise, the national laboratories of Sandia and Los Alamos are doing nuclear research on both civil nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. The Office of Safe Transportation is tasked with transporting enriched uranium and other critical materials to maintain nuclear reserves.

That was announced earlier this week a sophisticated group of hackers, backed by a foreign government – presumably Russia – stole information from the US Treasury Department and a US agency responsible for making decisions about the Internet and telecommunications, among other federal agencies.

“The United States government is aware of these reports and we are taking all necessary steps to identify and address potential issues related to this situation,” said John Ullyot, spokesman for the National Security Council.

Subsequently, local media claimed that the US intelligence community is concerned that the Hackers who attacked the Commerce Department’s Treasury Department and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration used a similar tool to gain access to other government agencies.

KEEP READING:

Joe Biden to nominate Deb Haaland to become the first native-born cabinet member

How serious was the hacking of US government agencies?