After downplaying the severity of the massive hacking operation that officials called a “grave risk to the federal government” earlier this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said Russia was responsible for the potentially unprecedented cyberattack against government and private systems. In an interview on the Mark Levin Show, Pompeo said it was his belief that “we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity,” making him the first member of the Trump administration to publicly blame the Kremlin for the breach of dozens of federal and private networks, including the Pentagon and the Treasury and Commerce Departments, the New York Times reports. Pompeo’s initial assessment seemed to dismiss the severity of the episode, saying Monday such attacks were common for the federal government and suggesting China, not Russia, was the main threat. But on Friday, Pompeo seemed to regard the situation with a new sense of gravity, calling the attack “a very significant effort”—the full scope of which remains to be seen. “We’re still unpacking precisely what it is,” Pompeo said.
At the time of Pompeo’s comments, President Donald Trump had yet to comment on the cyberattack. Trump addressed the situation for the first time on Saturday in a tweet, suggesting the situation had been exaggerated by the media and casting doubt on whether Russia was to blame.
Intelligence agencies have reportedly told Congress their belief that the attack was administered by the SVR, a sophisticated Russian intelligence service, and Pompeo’s comments come amid mounting concern about the extent to which U.S. networks have been compromised. (Russia has denied any involvement in the hacking.) The attack on the government and private companies has apparently been underway since spring, but it was only detected it a few weeks ago by the private sector, ranking, according to the Times, “among the greatest intelligence failures of modern times.” The federal government ramped up its response this week, with the newly established Cyber Unified Coordination Group—an urgent response group formed by the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—calling the situation a “significant and ongoing cybersecurity campaign,” per the Times.
Investigators continue to assess the damage. The hackers had “demonstrated an ability to exploit software supply chains and shown significant knowledge of Windows networks,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Thursday. “It is likely that the adversary has additional initial access vectors and tactics, techniques and procedures,” which, the agency warned, “have not yet been discovered.” The same day, Microsoft said it had already identified 40 systems that had been compromised in the attack, a number that “should rise substantially” in coming days. “There are more nongovernmental victims than there are governmental victims, with a big focus on I.T. companies, especially in the security industry,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, said, according to the Times.
As Trump dismissed the threat posed by the breach, President-elect Joe Biden said he “will not stand idly by in the face of cyberassaults on our nation” and pledged to “make cybersecurity a top priority at every level of government” when he takes office, starting with the recent breach: the incoming administration plans to impose “substantial costs on those responsible,” Biden added. Pompeo’s “attribution is a very important step,” Tom Bossert, Trump’s homeland security adviser until April 2018, told the Washington Post. “The United States can now direct its focus and unite the world against this outrage.” The Secretary’s willingness to address the matter could also have something to do with his own political ambitions as the administration comes to an end: Pompeo, widely believed to be a 2024 Republican hopeful, is apparently already planning for life after Trump.
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