Whose Cyber Spies Are Better - Russia or China?

Franz-Stafan Gady

April 9, 2015

Russian hackers have breached an unclassified network at the White House and had access to sensitive data such as U.S. President Barack Obama’s schedule, CNN reported yesterday.

However, Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security advisor, said that classified White House networks were not compromised.

“We’re constantly updating our security measures on our unclassified system, but we’re frankly told to act as if we need not put information that’s sensitive on that system,” he told CNN. ”In other words, if you’re going to do something classified, you have to do it on one email system, one phone system. Frankly, you have to act as if information could be compromised if it’s not on the classified system.”

According to officials, the attack appears to have been executed by the same Russian hackers, responsible for the breaches of U.S. State Department networks over the past year – a cyber attack labelled the “worst ever” against a U.S. federal agency.