“I can not say much because we have not opened it yet precisely, and I hope some of it will be categorized,” he said.
Instead of condemning the attack or Russia, Trump wrote to himself that “everything is fully explained and everything is under control” – this week officials in his administration said the cyber attack “poses a great threat” to both networks in the public and private sectors.
At least half a dozen federal organizations, including the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber arm and the agriculture, trade, energy and state departments, are now targeted for violations. Investigators are still trying to determine if any of the government data may have been accessed or stolen.
“There was a significant attempt to use third-party software to embed the code within U.S. government agencies, which now appear to be organizations of private companies and organizations and governments around the world,” Pompeo said.
Trump has been quiet in The Hague for most of the week. The White House briefed the president on Friday and said it was “working very hard” to deal with it.
When asked about Trump’s silence on the issue on Friday, Pompeo said work was underway behind the scenes.
“Boy, I’m going to call it that,” there are many things you want to say, but a wise move to protect the American people is to quietly go about your business and defend freedom, “he said.
The Russian embassy in Washington has denied involvement in the hack.
But Moscow has been linked to a number of recent violations, including the 2016 hacking of Democratic officials during the US presidential election.
CNN previously reported that a Russian-affiliated group called ABD29 was behind the attack on FireE.
That same evening, FireE identified the source of its own intrusion as malware hidden in software updates released by software vendor Solarwinds, used by several federal civil agencies for network management.
Malware updates were sent to 18,000 Solar Winds customers, including US government agencies and Fortune 500 companies.
The title and story have been updated to reflect President Donald Trump’s tweets in the cyber attack.
CNN’s Zachary Cohen, Brian Fung, Guidlen Collins, Alex Marquardt and Jason Hoffman contributed to the report.
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