WASHINGTON, December 18. /TASS/. The US National Nuclear Security Administration was not affected by a recent cyberattack on the US Department of Energy (DOE), spokesperson Shaylyn Hynes said.
In a statement received by TASS she said the department was responding to the cyber incident related to the Solar Winds compromise in coordination with its federal and industry partners.
"The investigation is ongoing and the response to this incident is happening in real time. At this point, the investigation has found that the malware has been isolated to business networks only, and has not impacted the mission essential national security functions of the Department, including the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)," the spokesperson said.
"When DOE identified vulnerable software, immediate action was taken to mitigate the risk, and all software identified as being vulnerable to this attack was disconnected from the DOE network," she added.
Earlier, the US Department of Commerce confirmed to TASS that the computer network of its agency called the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) had been hacked. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing into the incident. According to a Reuters report, the US intelligence community suspects that those who attacked the NTIA and also the Department of the Treasury might have used the same technique against other US government agencies. The situation is so serious that, according to the news agency, an urgent meeting of the National Security Council was held at the White House.
The Washington Post quotes sources as saying hackers working for the Russian government were behind the attack, which also targeted the US Department of State. The newspaper provided no evidence to back up its claims, though.
So far, the US authorities have not officially confirmed US media claims of Russian involvement.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has dismissed US accusations Russian hackers were behind those cyberattacks, and called upon the US authorities to stop to "groundlessly blame Russians." In his words, it was Russian President Vladimir Putin who invited the American side to agree and conclude an agreement on cooperation in the field of cybersecurity. "This would let both countries cooperate and resist cybercrimes and attempts at cyber blackmail and so on and so forth," he added.