The White House and U.S. State Department have both been attacked by "state-funded hackers" according to government officials, and the most likely culprit is either China or Russia, experts say.

Hacking has become a common issue for the U.S. government, as it attempts to fight off the cyber attackers threatening security and privacy of information in the country.  According to reports from the U.S. and security experts, many believe either China or Russia is involved in the hacking attempts, and this one is no different.

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The hackers were able to infiltrate systems in October, checking unclassified emails, but department officials claim none of the department's classified information was found. Security staff working for The White House and the State Department were both alerted to the issues in October, but did not start seeking prevention help until a month later.

It appears to be a mishmash of first not knowing hackers had disrupted the system and then trying to figure out what the hackers were going for on the department's systems. Email systems are not always the most secure parts of a government system. This has allowed hackers to leak classified documents to organizations like Wikileaks in the past.

The U.S. government has not officially blamed anyone for the hacking attempts yet, but the general consensus is the attacks came from a state-funded organization. China has been reportedly involved in many attacks on U.S. government and private sector hacks, allegedly to gain a competitive advantage through corporate espionage.

These claims have never been backed up by much evidence, even though security groups have spotted IP addresses where the attacks were likely administered from, and most track back to China. China has repetitively denied cyber attacks on U.S. government and private sector systems, claiming it is the U.S. who is using hackers to damage Chinese systems.

TagsThe White House, State Department, state-funded hackers, U.S. Government