On Saturday, Aug. 21, Fox News published an article with an unidentified source detailing that the U.S State Department was informed by the Department of Defense Cyber Command of an alleged cyber-attack.
The U.S State Department responded with a statement from a spokesperson, not confirming or denying the incident.
“The department takes seriously its responsibility to safeguard its information and continuously takes steps to ensure information is protected,” a State Department spokesperson said. “For security reasons, we are not in a position to discuss the nature or scope of any alleged cybersecurity incidents at this time."
According to the article, the extent of the breach remains unknown, but it is believed that the attack took place a couple of weeks ago. It is also unclear whether the breach has affected any department functions, but according to FoxNews, the operation in Afghanistan has not been impacted.
“It remains unclear if any department operations were affected by the breach, but a source familiar with mass evacuation of thousands of Americans and Afghans from Kabul said Operation Allies Refuge has ‘not been affected’.”
This revelation comes after the U.S State department received a poor score in the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs’ federal cyber security report.
“Notably, the report found that the agency could not provide documentation for 60% of the sample employees tested that had access to its classified network. The State Department also left thousands of employee accounts active even after they had departed from the agency for extended periods of time—in some cases as long as 152 days after employees quit, retired, or were fired—on its classified and unclassified networks,” Gizmodo stated.
News sources are awaiting details on the alleged cyber attack.
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