Cyberattackers recently targeted White House computer systems and successfully gained access to unclassified networks.
A White House official confirmed on Tuesday that the sustained attack was unusually strong and lengthy, according to The Washington Post. Although attacks on the White House's network occur on a daily basis, this one caused disruption for multiple days. Attacks typically last a few hours.
Although elements of unclassified networks were impacted, officials haven't specified whether any data was stolen.
An internal memo to White House staff explained that the IT security team took action to address the attack.
“In this case, we took immediate measure to evaluate and mitigate the activity,” the memo said. “Our actions are ongoing, and some have resulted in temporary outages and loss of connectivity for our users.”
The network outages were used as a defense mechanism, the memo said.
