Chinese Hackers Suspected In Attack on Federal Government Systems

Matthew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.

Editor’s Note: In May 2011, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Pentagon: Cyber Attacks Can Count as Acts of War.” The article began, “The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.”

As many as four million employees could have their personal information compromised in what some U.S. officials have called “the biggest breach ever of the government’s computer networks.”

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the breach saying that at the beginning of May hackers had violated the systems of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Interior Department.

“Protecting our Federal employee data from malicious cyber incidents is of the highest priority at OPM,” OPM Director Katherine Archuleta said in a statement. “We take very seriously our responsibility to secure the information stored in our systems, and in coordination with our agency partners, our experienced team is constantly identifying opportunities to further protect the data with which we are entrusted.”

Sen. Susan Collins told the Associated Press investigators believe the hack came from China.

Collins called the attack “yet another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and focusing on what appears to be data that would identify people with security clearances.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) intrusion system detected the hack, although many files were copied before the system alerted officials.

“DHS is continuing to monitor federal networks for any suspicious activity and is working aggressively with the affected agencies to conduct investigative analysis to assess the extent of this alleged intrusion,” A DHS statement read.

One thought on “Chinese Hackers Suspected In Attack on Federal Government Systems

  1. Yup! Spent the evening calling all of our banks and other monetary accounts to protect them. They got all the account numbers, passwords, security answers, all our family information-everything to include birthdates, maiden names, addresses.

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