2011-02-04 Malware attacks strike White House

There appears to have been a Malware cyber attack on the White House e-mail system, which has just been restored after experiencing an eight-hour outage Thursday. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer announced from an official White House Twitter account at 11:45 that

WH unclassified email went down shortly before 8 AM. Verizon is working to solve the problem.Pool reports will be avail in press office

It is thought that the attack targeted UK diplomats, according to British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who spoke in Munich today at a security conference. Hague also discussed for the first time a series of cyber attacks launched on over the past year, including Zeus Trojan infections of the Foreign Office and malware purporting to be a report on a Trident missile (an intercontinental ballistic missile armed with nuclear warheads) last December.

Hague states that "the UK Government was targeted in this attack and a large number of emails bypassed some of our filters." He said that experts were able to cure the infections "but more sophisticated attacks such as these are becoming more common."

An existing national security program aimed at counteracting cyber attacks is currently being funded for £650m. He also proposed the creation of a further "Defence Cyber Operations Group" and called for global collaboration to combat cybercrime.