US State Department-Prime Target for Hackers

The American State Department seems to possess quite an appeal for hackers lately, who have launched numerous attacks at it in the past few weeks, especially at its headquarters, and offices that deal with East Asia, China and North Korea in particular, the Associated Press reports, quoted by CNN.

According to US officials, it would have been just an annoyance, if the attackers had not stolen important US classified information and passwords and had not allegedly placed backdoor software in unclassified governmental computers in order to be able to come again whenever they want and receive more information regarding the matters they are interested in. Their prime targets were the offices that deal with diplomacy coordination in China, North and South Korea and Japan.

These officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the extreme sensitiveness of this issue, added that due to these break-ins and the ensuing investigations launched by the US State Department, Internet access in many locations, including many headquarters offices in Washington, have been severely limited since mid-June when they were first observed. However, Internet connections have been restored to many departments since then.

The department spokesman, Kurtis Cooper stated: "The department did detect anomalies in network traffic, and we thought it prudent to ensure our system's integrity". He also added that due to the pending investigation, the department does not know what kind of information was stolen.

The reasons for such break-ins in computers that hold information regarding the above mentioned countries are not that difficult to imagine, especially during the current international political realm which has been plagued by the North Korean missile crisis. Among the main suspects of other earlier break-ins at the Defense Department and several other US agencies, is China, which is why diplomats' attention is set upon it right now.