Nuclear Weapons Agency, Which Has The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile, Reportedly Has Evidence That Their Network Has Been Hacked

According to a breaking report from POLITICO, the Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, the department that holds the United State’s nuclear weapon stockpile, has evidence pointing towards a breach in security. Officials who are directly familiar with the situation claim that evidence seems to show that hackers accessed the Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration’s networks in connection with an “extensive espionage operation” that has impacted upwards of at least half a dozen different federal agencies.

According to the report, officials with the DOE and NNSA began to coordinate their notifications to their respective congressional oversight bodies today, to notify them of the breach in security, after being briefed by the DOE chief information officer, Rocky Campione.

The report from POLITICO reads:

They found suspicious activity in networks belonging to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories in New Mexico and Washington, the Office of Secure Transportation and the Richland Field Office of the DOE. The hackers have been able to do more damage at FERC than the other agencies, the officials said, but did not elaborate.

Federal investigators have been combing through networks in recent days to determine what hackers had been able to access and/or steal, and officials at DOE still don’t know whether the attackers were able to access anything, the people said, noting that the investigation is ongoing and they may not know the full extent of the damage ‘for weeks.'”

Yesterday, a joint statement on the breach was given by the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in which they acknowledged the “ongoing” cybersecurity campaign and claimed that they had only recently become aware of the hacking.

“This is a developing situation, and while we continue to work to understand the full extent of this campaign, we know this compromise has affected networks within the federal government,” their joint statement reads.

You can read the full report from POLITICO here.

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