US Health Agency Suffers Cyber Attack Amid The Outbreak of Covid-19
The world is fighting an outbreak of a latest coronavirus called COVID-19. The virus came from Wuhan, China, SARS COV-2 the biological virus responsible for COVID-19, and it has been spreading in different parts of the world ever since. It has infected over 100, 000 people and has taken the lives of over 5, 000 people worldwide. According to World Health Organization, the coronavirus is a global pandemic as of March 11.
Cyber Attacks
The U.S. Health and Human Services Department faced a cyber-attack on their computer system. The attack was recognized as a campaign against disinformation and disruption and it was meant to undermine reaction towards the coronavirus pandemic. Also, a foreign actor might be behind this scheme.
According to John Ullyot, a spokesman for the National Security Council, they are well-aware of a certain cyber incident that concerns the Health and Human Services computer system. He assured that the federal government is carefully investigating the incident. He also added that the federal government and HHS cybersecurity experts are consistently monitoring and performing appropriate actions to address the incident and secure their federal networks. At this time, the HHS and federal networks are back to their normal work and are functionality smoothly.
Attack From Foreign State
Though the attacker might come from a foreign state, the administration hasn’t confirmed who was behind it, according to a US official. In addition, Caitlin Oakley, an HHS spokeswoman gave a statement saying that the agency needed to place additional protections as part of its preparation to the outbreak of coronavirus. After finding out about the sudden surge in activity on HHS cyber infrastructure, they are fully operation and investigating the matter thoroughly. They are also working together with federal law enforcement, staying focused and vigilant on guaranteeing the integrity of their IT infrastructure.
The cyber-attack that happened involved overloading of the HHS servers that come with millions of hits for more than a few hours. But the attackers didn’t had any luck in decelerating the system of the agency, according to one of the person who is knowledgeable with the incident. Moreover, they requested anonymity to talk about the details of the delicate incident.
The National Security Council
The National Security Council also issued a tweet that warns the citizen without explaining about the phony text messages. The said tweet was sent by a message coming from an anonymous sender warning that some of the military pals of the sender hear in a briefing the President Trump is planning to order a mandatory two week quarantine for the entire nation.
The officials believe that the message, which was spread through social media, email, and text, had a lot to do with the HHS cyber-attack. According to the White House officials, Trump is not issuing a nationwide quarantine. In addition to this, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, as well as other Trump administration officials know about the incident and the hack wasn’t a result of any data stole from the systems of HHS. General Paul Nakasone of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, said they are taking care of the situation.