WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. government agencies were ordered to scour their networks for malware and disconnect potentially compromised servers on Monday after authorities learned that the Treasury and Commerce departments were hacked in a global cyber-espionage campaign tied to a foreign government.
In a rare emergency directive issued late Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity arm warned of an “unacceptable risk” to the executive branch from a feared large-scale penetration of U.S. government agencies that could date back to mid-year or earlier.
“This can turn into one of the most impactful espionage campaigns on record,” said cybersecurity expert Dmitri Alperovitch.
The campaign was first discovered when a prominent cybersecurity firm, FireEye, learned it had been breached. FireEye would not say who it suspected – many experts believe the operation is Russian given the careful tradecraft – and noted that foreign governments and major corporations were also compromised.
News that federal agencies were hacked, first reported by Reuters, came less than a week after FireEye disclosed that nation-state hackers had broken into its network and stolen the company’s own hacking tools.