14 DAY TRIAL // NBC News is reporting that the Pentagon has been targeted by a sophisticated cyber-attack, which it believes originates from Russia.
According to reporters, the attack was carried out on the Pentagon's unclassified email system used by Joint Staff members.
The incident was detected around July 25, and since then, the Pentagon's public email system used by 4,000 of its military and civilian staff has been shut down.
No classified data was leaked
The Pentagon says there was no classified information being exchanged on this system, but it was still shut down to avoid further leaks until the vulnerability is discovered and fixed.
In a statement to AFP, Pentagon spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Valerie Henderson said, "Our top priority is to restore services as quickly as possible. As a matter of policy and for operational security reasons, we do not comment on the details of cyber incidents or attacks against our networks."
While there are many articles online about the topic, most differ in one way or another, leading us to believe that there's still a lot of mystery around what seemed to have really happened.
Encrypted social media accounts were used to control the attack
The only common details are that the hackers used an automated system to breach the email system's defenses, extracted data in bulk, which they sent to various servers.
Some sources are also reporting that social media accounts were used to control the attack.
While most reports point the finger towards Russian hackers, AFP is blaming the famed Chinese espionage program, which has been very active in the US lately, recently getting their hands on government personnel records.
No report is "brave" enough to point the finger at the Russian government since no official evidence exists that the attack was the work of an official agency or of a rogue group.
This is not the first time the Pentagon's network is breached.