Energy Department among federal agencies breached by Russian ransomware gang
U.S. officials say the Department of Energy is among a small number of federal agencies compromised in a Russian cyber-extortion gang’s global hack of a file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments
The Department of Energy and several other federal agencies were compromised in a Russian cyber-extortion gang's global hack of a file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments, but the impact was not expected to be great, Homeland Security officials said Thursday.
Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters that unlike the meticulous, stealthy SolarWinds hacking campaign attributed to state-backed Russian intelligence agents that was months in the making, this campaign was short, opportunistic and caught quickly.
A senior CISA official said neither the U.S. military nor intelligence community was affected. Energy Department spokesperson Chad Smith said two agency entities were compromised but did not provide more detail.
Known victims to date include Louisiana’s Office of Motor Vehicles, the Nova Scotia provincial government, British Airways, the British Broadcasting Company and the U.K. drugstore chain Boots.
