Massive security breach at US federal agency

US officials believe this could be the largest breach to ever effect the government’s computer networks and are warning personnel who may be affected to closely monitor financial statements and credit reports.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has said they believe the hack originated in China. The Chinese embassy in Washington has warned against "jumping to conclusions”, with Embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan saying that the accusations were "not responsible, and counterproductive".

The FBI is working with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and OPM to investigate the the incident. FBI spokesman Josh Campbell said: “We take all potential threats to public- and private-sector systems seriously and will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace.”

Mark Bower, global director at HP Security Voltage, commented on the breach. He said: "Theft of personal and demographic data allows one of the most effective secondary attacks to be mounted: direct spear-phishing to yield access to deeper system access, via credentials or malware thus accessing more sensitive data repositories as a consequence. These attacks, now common, bypass of classic perimeter defenses and data-at-rest security and can only realistically be neutralised with more contemporary data-centric security technologies adopted already by the leaders on the private sector. Detection is too late. Prevention is possible today through data de-identification technology. So why is this attack significant? Beyond spear-phishing, knowing detailed personal information past and present creates possible cross-agency attacks given job history data appears to be in the mix. Thus, its likely this attack is less about money, but more about gaining deeper access to other systems and agencies which might even be defense or military data, future economic strategy data, foreign political strategy, and sensitive assets of interest at a nation-state level for insight, influence and intellectual property theft."

Tony Berning, senior manager at software company OPSWAT, also commented, claiming that current cyber security isn’t sophisticated enough to deal with threats. He said: "Unfortunately the federal government breach underlines the fact that current cyber security defences are not sophisticated enough to prevent infiltration. For high security and classified networks it is important to secure the data flow by deploying one-way security gateways and ensuring that no information can leave the network. In addition, to ensure the highest protection against known and unknown threats, multi-scanning with multiple anti-malware engines should be deployed, leveraging the power of the different detection algorithms and heuristics of each engine, and greatly increasing the detection rate of threats and outbreaks."

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