“The department is among a growing list of public institutions and private industries facing an increasing number of sophisticated cyber threats,” Psaki said during a press briefing. “We deal successfully with thousands of attacks every day, and we deal with them in conjunction with other relevant government agencies.”
The State Department still struggles to rid itself of infiltrators who breached its unclassified e-mail system last November, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Five people familiar with the attack suggested it was carried out by Russian hackers, the publication said.
Psaki said she was “not going to get into any level of detail” about who was behind the attack.
The revelation that a major US government agency has failed to weed out hackers from its networks comes a week after US President Barack Obama signed an executive order to promote 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, JP Morgan and Sony Pictures Entertainment, among others, fell victim to cyberattacks.
