Health & Human Services Department Suffers Cyber Attack Meant to Slow Coronavirus Response, No Damage Done

According to a Bloomberg article posted earlier this morning, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (“HHS”) suffered a cyber attack on its computer systems Sunday night. The attack appears to have been intended to slow the agency’s systems, but was unable to do so in any meaningful way. Just before midnight, the National Security Council also tweeted: “Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE. There is no national lockdown.  @CDCGov has and will continue to post the latest guidance on #COVID19.” The tweet was related to the hacking and release of disinformation. The government realized Sunday that there had been a cyberintrusion and that false information was circulating.

The hacking involved multiple incidents, and the tweet was meant in part to address the hacking.  It does not appear the hackers took data from the systems. The administration has not yet confirmed who was behind the attack, which involved overloading the HHS servers with millions of hits over several hours. AS of the posting of this blog, neither HHS, the White House, nor the National Security Council responded to Bloomberg’s requests for comment.

Read the Bloomberg article here.