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Politician reports that officials have begun coordinating notifications about the security breach to the relevant congressional oversight bodies.
Suspicious activity has been identified on the networks of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and Washington, the Office of Safe Transportation and the Richland Field Office of the Department of Energy.
Officials with direct knowledge of the matter said that hackers have been able to do more damage to the network at FERC, according to the report.
Shaylyn Hynes, said a DOE spokesperson The independent that the department is responding in coordination with federal and industry partners and that the investigation is ongoing and that the response to this incident is occurring in real time.
“At this point, the investigation has found that the malware has been isolated only on commercial networks and has not impacted the essential national security functions of the department’s mission, including the National Nuclear Security Administration,” he said.
“When the DOE identified vulnerable software, immediate steps were taken to mitigate the risk and all software identified as vulnerable to this attack was disconnected from the DOE’s network.”
DOE is in constant communication with its industry partners, including the leadership of the Coordinating Councils of the energy sector subsector.
Regular contact is also maintained with the Centers for Analysis and Information Exchange for electricity, oil and natural gas, and downstream natural gas, which facilitate communication between the government and all partners in those sectors.
Federal authorities have voiced alarm over the intrusion into the United States and other computer systems around the world that officials suspect was carried out by Russian hackers.
The Infrastructure and Cybersecurity Security Agency warned of a “serious” risk to government and private networks.
In its most detailed comments yet, the agency said Thursday that the intrusion had compromised both federal agencies and “critical infrastructure” in a sophisticated attack that was difficult to detect and difficult to undo.
CISA did not specify which agencies or infrastructure had been breached, or what information had been taken. The attack is believed to have started in March.
The agency previously said the perpetrators had used network management software from Texas-based SolarWinds to infiltrate computer networks. An updated alert says that hackers may have used other methods as well.
The DOE confirmed that the attack on its system was related to SolarWinds.
The Associated Press reports that one official said: “This appears to be the worst case of piracy in US history. They got into everything. “
If the hack can be shown to originate in Russia, it could create a new foreign policy headache for the Trump administration in its final days in the White House.
Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah commented on the apparent silence from the Oval Office: “I think the White House needs to say something aggressive about what happened. It is almost as if there is a Russian bomber flying undetected over the country, even capital, And not responding in an environment like that is really impressive. “
President-elect Joe Biden said in a statement: “I want to be clear: my administration will make cybersecurity a top priority at all levels of government, and we will make dealing with this breach a priority from the moment we take office.” .
He continued: “We will elevate cybersecurity as a government-wide imperative, further strengthen partnerships with the private sector, and expand our investment in the infrastructure and people we need to defend against malicious cyber attacks.”
The president-elect added that he wants to go on the offensive to disrupt and deter such attacks in the future, and said he would not sit idly by in the face of cyberattacks.
