Cyber Attack on White House

White House Information Security Breach

Russian hackers blamed for cyber attack that exposed President's private schedule - as White House insists computer system is secure-by Daily Mail

The article is a of the six months investigations that were commenced on the cause and source of the cyber attack and information security breach that took place in October 2014 within the State Department and exposed some of the restricted information within the White House. The report indicates that the possible culprits in the information compromise were the private schedule of the president of the United States and the emails of some of the people working within White House.

Further, the article attributes this act of cyber attack on a group of cyber-bandits who were working on behalf of the Russian government and Vladimir Putin. Immediate measures were taken once the compromise was noted and systems shut down and upgraded to avoid a repeat of the same, the Daily mail however insinuates that an anonymous source shared with them that a re-entry into the White House systems has taken place by the same group. It is also indicated that the Russian embassy refused to comment on the allegations on the involvement of their country. The white house also refuted the claims that the systems have since been hacked into again. Through the White House deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, the State Department clarified that though the intrusion took place, it did not compromise the classified information as the attack only reached the unclassified system. The writer alludes that the cyber attack was facilitated through an act known as phishing, where an email was sent by the hackers after commandeering one of the State Department email accounts, to one of the white house team members, who opened the mail and the malicious software was installed into the system, which in turn allowed the hackers to access the white house systems and private data for the president like his private itinerary.

Rhodes recognized that the cyber security of white house, like that of any other organization is constantly under threat and that the security team takes it upon themselves to daily monitor and improve the system such that even the unclassified data is kept safe from intrusion from such groups. It is however disturbing to know that data at white house was accessed from a suspected rival of the U.S. And even more scary is the fact that no ordinary person knows how much of the data was accessed and to what use the hackers and the Russian government will put the information they have from white house. The president is known to use his blackberry to send and receive mails and communicate with other white house staff and the amounts of data and the levels of confidentiality of the data could be very sensitive.

Cause of the cyberattack and necessary measures

Critics say that the attack was successful due to the failure of white house to adopt to the new codes and instead relying on codes that have been in use over the decade and to make matters worse, the State Department used the public lines in their mail systems which was a major facilitator to the attack. Russia is seen as a bigger threat in the cyberspace than the traditional threats like China and the different thing with Russia is tat they have incorporated the cyber operations into their military training and policies, hence making it more lethal than other countries. Russia was noted in the recent past to have infiltrated the Ukraine communications systems hence continues to blend the cyberspace attacks with the other warfighting hence the need to address this threat soonest possible. The Russian cyber spies are known to do more than spying, but have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid which is and exploitation of the U.S. research as Frank J.C. & Sharon L.C. (2015), indicate. This situation then calls for mitigation measures that would help make the cyberspace of the U.S. safe and hinder any further infiltration into the various sectors of the U.S. economy and operations, not only the State Department and the national grid. There is need for the very sensitive sectors like the State Department and white house to use customized codes that are regularly revised so as to make the systems impregnable by the hackers. There is also need to have cyber-deterrence measures that will involve other allies and the NATO which will send a clear message to the adversaries such as Russia and any other groups and nations that intend to carry out cyber attacks on the U.S.