Government Agencies are Compromised by Russian Ransomware

Several federal agencies, including the Department of Energy and several others, have been hacked by a Russian cyber-extortion gang. However, Homeland Security officials warned Thursday that the impact would not be very significant. The hack of a popular file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments involved the Russian cyber-extortion gang.

While the hack was beginning to appear to have some serious consequences for some of the hundreds of possible victims – including patrons of at least two state motor vehicle agencies as well as several individuals in the industry – the incident began to cause some concern. 

As the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Jen Easterly, explained to reporters, this hacking campaign, compared to the meticulous, stealthy SolarWinds hack blamed on state-backed Russian intelligence agents, was relatively short and superficial. It was quickly caught in the act. 

Easterly explained that these intrusions are not being used as a means of gaining broad access, gaining persistent access, or stealing specific high-value data. As far as they can tell, the attack is mainly opportunistic and has no other purpose.

CISA officials told a senior reporter that neither the U.S. military nor the U.S. intelligence community had been af

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