Politico reports that the cyber attack by a Russian-backed hacking group known as “Cozy Bear” has now been found to have breached the Department of Energy’s agencies and laboratories responsible for the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
National security experts have determined that the Russians were able to access systems at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories in New Mexico and Washington, the Office of Secure Transportation at National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and the Richland Field Office of the DOE.
NNSA is responsible for safeguarding the nuclear arms stockpiles of the United States military.
Lame duck president Donald Trump, who has just 34 days left in office and reportedly has not receive a national security briefing since October, has yet to speak out about the cyberattack on multiple federal agencies, including the Departments of Homeland Security, Commerce and Treasury, among others.
“They compromised our basic national security, and the depths of it, we still don’t know,” Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois told Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC. “He’s just as silent about this episode as he was on the bounties on American soldiers. I don’t understand this president.”
Durbin said that the attack occurred “months ago” and that the impacted agencies have yet to assess what information the hackers accessed or if they destroyed any files.