Pompeo is the first member of the Trump administration to publicly link the Kremlin to the cyberattack, which used a variety of sophisticated tools to infiltrate dozens of government and private systems, including nuclear laboratories and the Pentagon, Treasury and Commerce departments. Until Friday, Pompeo had played down the episode as one of the many daily attacks on the federal government. Microsoft said it had identified 40 companies, government agencies and think tanks that the hackers had infiltrated. Across federal agencies, the private sector and the utility companies that oversee the power grid, forensic investigators were still trying to unravel the extent of the compromise. Inside federal agencies and the private sector, investigators say they have been stymied by classifications and a siloed approach to information sharing.

Source: bd News24 December 19, 2020 10:07 UTC