US government hit by cyber attack

THE WHITE HOUSE confirmed today that its computer systems have come under attack, with the finger of blame pointed at Chinese hackers.

While it remains unclear whether the hackers took any information from the computers, a law enforcement official has revealed that the hackers used a spear phishing attack to hack into the computers.

"This was a spear phishing attack against an unclassified network," the spokesperson said. "These types of attacks are not infrequent and we have mitigation measures in place."

"This [White House Communications Agency] guy opened an email he wasn't supposed to open," the official added.

The email contained a spear phishing attack, an attack that uses official looking messages to disguise targeted, malicious attempts to access confidential information.

However, another White House official downplayed today's reports, saying that the hackers didn't manage to steal any confidential information from the computers.

Rob Rachwald, director of security strategy at Imperva said this attack should not have happened in the first place, as the White House should have effective security measures in place.

"Yet again traditional security software has failed to keep the bad guys out. 

"This is yet another example of why we need to rethink the current security model and implement a new one that puts cameras on sensitive information." µ