The government may never be able to say who hacked into the Office of Personnel Management’s computer system, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Tuesday.
“I can’t promise you that we will be in a position at any point in the future to make a grand pronouncement about who may have been responsible for this particular intrusion, but it is something that we are working hard to try to determine,” he said.
When the huge data breach was reported last week, some reports circulated that the source of the intrusion was China. That prompted China to reject that theory, and neither the White House nor the State Department has publicly confirmed those reports.
Earnest said that the FBI is still investigating who accessed millions of past and current federal employees’ personnel files, an event that could affect up to 4 million people. The FBI is studying past cyberattacks on federal and private-sector servers for similarities or links that may offer clues about the perpetrators identity, he said.
The latest breach highlights how vulnerable the federal government’s computer architecture is, Earnest admitted. But the administration has been working “diligently” to upgrade cybersecurity, on in what in some cases are “pretty old” systems. He said the OPM intrusion was detected because the federal government “was implementing better defenses, [which is an] indication that they are making progress.”
Contrary to criticism that the administration has not done enough to protect the government’s electronic files and databases, Earnest said President Obama has made cybersecurity a priority.
He convened a summit on the subject back in February; it was on the agenda of a recent cabinet meeting; and he raised the topic while making a public statement with British Prime Minster David Cameron Monday at the G-7 summit in Germany, Earnest said.
