Justice Department Says 3 Percent Of Its Emails Compromised By Russian Hack

“The Department of Justice’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) learned of previously unknown malicious activity linked to the global SolarWinds incident that has affected multiple federal agencies and technology contractors, among others. This activity access to the Department’s Microsoft O365 email environment,” said Department of Justice Spokesperson, Marc Raimondi, in a statement published January 6.

According to Raimondi, no classified systems are thought to be affected. The statement, however, didn’t mention who the compromised email accounts belonged to, or if it affected data outside email since Microsoft’s Office 365 included multiple document-sharing options.

“As part of the ongoing technical analysis, the Department has determined that the activity constitutes a major incident under the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, and is taking the steps consistent with that determination,” Raimondi continued.

SolarWinds, a technology company based in Austin, Texas, sells software that lets an organization see what’s happening on its computer network. Hackers inserted malicious code into an update of that software, which is called Orion.

Around 18,000 SolarWinds costumes installed the compromised updated onto their systems, the company said in December. The tainted update has had a sweeping impact, the scale of which continues to grow.

US intelligence agencies attributed the hack to Russia in a joint statement published on Tuesday.

In the statement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the National Security Agency (NSA) said the hack was “likely Russian in origin.”

The hack, which was first discovered by security firm FireEye, has since affected multiple local, state and federal agencies in the US alongside private companies such as Microsoft.

“This is not ’espionage as usual,’ even in the digital age. Instead, it represents an act of recklessness that created a serious technological vulnerability for the United States and the world,” Brad Smit, President of Microsoft, wrote in a statement on December 16.

“The attack, unfortunately, represents a broad and successful espionage-based assault on both the confidential information of the U.S. government and the tech tools used by firms to protect them. The attack is ongoing,” the executive continued.

Newsweek reached out to the Justice Department, but didn’t hear back in time for publication.