Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 2015 and now retired, is now acknowledging the Russian attempt to hack into the e-mail system used by the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff in August 2015.
According to CBS News, Dempsey got an emergency early-morning phone call from the Director of the National Security Agency, Admiral Mike Rogers alerting him to the attack.
Dempsey told CBS News that the ferocity of the attack was terribly alarming; within one hour, hackers seized control of the unclassified e-mail system used by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, comprised of roughly 3,500 military officers and civilians who work for the Chairman. The network had to be closed because the hackers grabbed the passwords and electronic signatures computer credentials of Dempsey and hundreds of other senior officers.
The attack commenced with 30,000 e-mails sent to a West Coast university, four of which were forwarded to members of the Joint Staff. The hackers penetrated the system when one email was opened.
CBS News reported:
It was not spying, but a full-on assault whose only apparent purpose was to cause damage and force the Pentagon to replace both hardware and software, which took about two weeks to accomplish. The motive for the attack was believed to be Russian anger at economic sanctions orchestrated by the Obama administration in response to Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea and interference in Ukraine.
Last year, all that was clear was that a cyber-attack had been launched. NBC News reported in August 2015 that U.S. officials announced a “sophisticated cyberattack” against the Pentagon’s Joint Staff unclassified email system sometime around July 25 which affected some 4,000 military and civilian personnel who work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
NBC News stated, “The officials say its not clear whether the attack was sanctioned by the Russian government or conducted by individuals. But, given the scope of the attack, ‘It was clearly the work of a state actor,’ the officials say.”