Citing several sources familiar with the ongoing investigation, The Wall Street Journal said that despite investigators' continued attempts to find and block hackers, tweaks to their malware allow attackers to circumnavigate the State Department's cyberwalls.
"We take any possible cyber intrusion very serious — as we did with the one we discussed several months ago — and we deal with them in conjunction with other relevant government agencies," Marie Harf, State Department spokeswoman, stated to the media in a written statement.
The revelation that a major US government agency has failed to weed out hackers from its networks comes just a week after US President Barack Obama signed an executive order promoting cybersecurity data sharing between the government and the private sector.
Cyberattacks have grown increasingly commonplace in public and private institutions across the United States. In 2014, the White House, the US Central Command, as well as such companies as JP Morgan and Sony Pictures Entertainment, among others, fell victim to systems' breaches.
