Hackers Took Up Residence Inside Government PC for a Year!

I recently wrote an article which looked at the Cyber attack and subsequent theft of 4.2 million American Federal data of employees which was transferred from the Office of Personnel Management to an external source. At the time it seemed to be a well orchestrated planned attack which granted criminals access to a government network for a brief period of time, the word brief in this case is very much redundant now, as  new information has come to light.

This attack on the Personnel Management’s security-clearance computer system which is slightly different to the personal database was first breached in June, 2014 according to new information. This effectively means that hackers had access to a sensitive system for at least a year. Hackers had access to the personal database for 4 months before this intrusion was detected. The confirmation came from Stewart Baker who is a former National Security Agency general counsel. There is also strong speculation that these Hacks had originated from China, which means if true, this is one of the most sensitive pieces of information to be reached by state-sponsored hackers.  If these virtual intruders stayed any longer, officials would be asking them to pay rent.

There lays the murky layers of state organized crimes, if true, China will deny responsibility, but as we all know, China has farmed hacking and infiltration out to factory designed hackers who are still on the payroll, but the Chinese government can deny this as it was not directly them.

Perhaps it’s time for the US government to invest in protecting its citizens rather than placing them under virtual surveillance, if this information leakage continues; private citizens will find themselves virtually held in a different country.

Thank You The Washington Post for providing us with this information

Image courtesy of huffingtonpost