U.S. State Department Reportedly Slammed by Cyberattack
“The extent of the breach and the perpetrators behind the attack remains unclear at this time. “
We have recently covered cyberattacks on critical industries in this country, specifically on gas pipelines and meat processing facilities.
Given the continuing chaos in Afghanistan, as well as the current administration’s completely ineffectual, damaging, and damning decisions related to the the withdrawal of the U.S. military, it should come as a surprise to nobody that our adversaries will take advantage of the complete chaos for even more cyberattacks.
Indeed, the U.S. State Department (home of many of the disastrous Afghanistan decisions) has reportedly been electronically breached.
The State Department is the latest to fall victim to a cyber-attack and notifications of a possible serious breach were made by the Department of Defense Cyber Command, a source told Fox News Saturday.
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”.
The extent of the breach and the perpetrators behind the attack remains unclear at this time.
“The Department takes seriously its responsibility to safeguard its information and continuously takes steps to ensure information is protected,” a department spokesperson told Fox News. “For security reasons, we are not in a position to discuss the nature or scope of any alleged cybersecurity incidents at this time.”
The timing of the discovery has not been revealed, though indications are that it happened a couple of weeks ago.
A State Department official indicates that their abilities to evacuate Americans and allied refugees has not been hampered.
Of course, Americans can be forgiven if we are skeptical of the claims being made by this administration.
Notably, a Senate Homeland Security committee report this month rated State Department’s overall information security a ‘D’, the lowest possible rating in the model, calling it ineffective in 4 of 5 function areashttps://t.co/FqOnxeaimr pic.twitter.com/ALqq94l1hd
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) August 21, 2021
On the civilian front, T-Mobile recently revealed that the personal data of more than five million additional customers was compromised in the recent cyber attack, bringing the total number of people impacted to over 50 million.
The company revealed earlier this week that it was the victim of a “highly sophisticated cyberattack,” and that the data of millions of current and prospective customers — including names and social security numbers — had been compromised. The company reiterated on Friday that it has no indication any of the stolen files include financial information or credit and debit card information.
“We previously reported information from approximately 7.8 million current T-Mobile postpaid customer accounts that included first and last names, date of birth, SSN, and driver’s license/ID information was compromised,” the company said Friday, adding that it also determined phone numbers and IMEI and IMSI information (identifier numbers associated with a mobile phone) were also compromised. “Additionally, we have since identified another 5.3 million current postpaid customer accounts that had one or more associated customer names, addresses, date of births, phone numbers, IMEIs and IMSIs illegally accessed.”
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Comments
The truth is,,,,, We are at war.. Our government and a large percentage of the population are just too stupid to understand it.
Yes, we are at war. With our own government. And they have us in their sights.
Btw: why does anyone need to ‘hack’ the state department, when they have everything from Hillary Clinton’s server?
There is an undeclared war on Whites. Kendi and his followers cover their neo-racism with propaganda call it “anti-racism”. The brainwashed Zombies of the left don’t even question the hypocrisy. They have lost all ability to use reason or logic. Our government, the media and the multi-national corporates (pushed by China) all support this undeclared war.
Everyone must push back hard against it and fight like your life and your family’s life depends on it – because it probably does.
Stupid when it comes to cyber security. We need to rebuild America’s internet from the ground up. It needs to be a loosely coupled distributed system. people are working on it, have been for some years.
“A State Department official indicates that their abilities to evacuate Americans and allied refugees has not been hampered.”
Close, real close….
More likely… “A State Department official indicates that their inabilities to evacuate Americans and allied refugees has not been hampered.”
Let’s see…Russian hackers vs. our Marxist State Department. Who do I root for?
Um, er, uh….I’m thinking! I’m thinking!
Right about the time of the T-Mobile breach, I was calling T-Mobile about some issue on my account. The agent was making sure I was who I said I was, asking for my name, address, and so on.
He asked for my SSN.
I said, “You don’t have it.”
“I need your SSN,” he repeated.
I repeated, “You don’t have it on record.”
He said, “I know I don’t have it. That’s why I’m asking for it.”
I said, “I didn’t give it to you when I signed up, what makes you think I’m going to give it to you now?”
He skipped that question and proceeded to handle the point of my call.
And that’s precisely why you don’t have it, you feckwits.
I feel sorry for the well-meaning sheep who supplied theirs to them.
Some of the state of Wa sites are down today too.
Could be a screwed up maint…but the timing is precarious.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of bureaucrats.
Has the Department of State always been the dumping ground for incompetent people who – somehow – have to be found “jobs”? I mean before the Dept of Ed could catch the overflow.
When I was young I thought about going into the foreign service. It sounded like it would be a cool adventure.
Then, I met my wife and wanted a home/family that was stqble.
Besides that, you likely aren’t from A Good Family, or couldn’t buy your way in.
Well, that is certainly true. The plan was to be a science liaison. My mother did 6 months in afghanistan teaching them how to regrow forests. Something like that.
Travel sounds cool when we are young, it really becomes a pain later. Especially after 9-11, where travel overhead time really increased, most of which was just useless theater. When I went to Harvard to speak, the airline lost my luggage. I travel dressed for comfort, cargo pants and pocket T shirts. They did find my luggage and deliver it at 4 am, making what was already a poor night of sleep, worse. After the event, I took the red eye home.
DOS used to be, and may be for all I know still be, a club for the connected spoiled children of the declining elite (people who have names and old but diminishing family money and influence) who wanted some sort of impressive sounding calling but otherwise incapable of making it in the world and need something fitting to match their lineage.
The employees who thanklessly toil in the bowels of the organization filling out visa applications and such move the bureaucracy along, but the spoiled kids of the declining elite are the ones who get the cushy postings with impressive sounding titles and the authority to make decisions on policy.
My experience working with people from the DOS not limited, and I can say I was never impressed by anyone working for them. They have a lot of people from other agencies and departments attached to embassies and consulates, some of who were impressive, but no DOS employee I have ever met stands out.
Department of Ed has been a dumping ground for dimwits for a long time.
It was just Hillary checking her email — she forgot which server she was supposed to access.
“The Department takes seriously its responsibility to safeguard its information and continuously takes steps to ensure information is protected,”
Like when it was in Hillary”s bathroom?
What damage could a hostile hacker bunch do that the beyond incompetent people who run the place now have already done?
In related news with nobody to present the rainbow flag to the Saudi King, or preach critical race theory to Macron and beg him to embrace it or attack the Hungarians for standing for Hungary relations with nations that aren’t in the process of suicide have improved.