The United States Navy got hacked and the personal details along with social security numbers of 134,386 current and former US sailors have been stolen.
According to a public statement that was released by US officials early this morning, The United States Navy got hacked and the personal details of more than 134,000 sailors were stolen.
US Navy and the organization is now working to notify those affected 134,386 current and former US sailors about the breach through email, phone, calls, and letters. Navy laptops are operated by sailors based on a contract with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HP)
HP notified that the navy was under attack on October 27 when they discovered that one of the HP laptops used by an employee as part of the Enterprises Services agreement was hacked. The service said in a news release.
The Navy says “After analysis by HPES and a continuing Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigation, it was determined Nov. 22, 2016, that sensitive information, including the names and Social Security Numbers (SSNs) of 134,386 current and former Sailors were accessed by unknown individuals”
Navy insisted that there is no evidence that stolen information of 134,386 current and former US sailors are being used by the hackers. However, the investigation will continue just to make sure that such a thing won’t happen.
Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Rober Burke said: “The Navy takes this incident extremely seriously- this is a matter of trust for our Sailors”. “We are in the early stages of investigating and are working quickly to identify and take care of those affected by this breach”
There is no details regarding which hacker or group attacked the US navy and what was the reason to do so. However, it wasn’t the fist time sailors are targeted by massive cyber attacks.
As mentioned by Softpedia: “Back in 2013, the United States blamed Iran for a series of attacks launched at Navy computers, including an unclassified machine network that was used for email and internal intranet. US officials claimed the attacks were launched by the Iranian government or a hacking group that was employed by the government, and said that no valuable information was stolen.”
There is no confirmation that the cyber attack recorded was launched by another government or hacking groups linked to another country. So, what you think about this? Share your thoughts in comment section below.