It is a huge cyber espionage campaign targeting the U.S. government and its interests, one report said.

According to media reports, several US government agencies have been victims of hacking attacks. The attacks controlled by a foreign government were aimed at the US Treasury and the NTIA telecommunications authority, which is part of the US Department of Commerce.

The government is now doing everything to identify and solve possible problems, stated John Ullyot, spokesman for the National Security Council in the White House.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency also confirmed the incident to CNN, telling the news outlet: We have been working closely with our agency partners regarding recently discovered activity on government networks.

CISA is providing technical assistance to affected entities as they work to identify and mitigate any potential compromises, the statement continued.

Reuters first reported that a sophisticated hacking group from Russia stole information and were monitoring internal email traffic from the U.S. Treasury Department and a U.S. ad agency responsible for deciding policy around the internet and telecommunications.



Access to the US government mail server

According to media reports, the attackers had access to the internal mail traffic of the US government and the NTIA for months. The US intelligence agencies specialists are concerned that other government agencies may have been hacked with similar tools. The extent of the attack is still uncertain.

It is a much bigger story than one single agency, stated one of the people familiar with the matter. It is a huge cyber espionage campaign targeting the U.S. government and its interests.

It was only on Tuesday that the IT security company FireEye itself became a victim of a hacker attack. According to the company, the perpetrators' actions pointed to a state-organized attack. The hackers would have targeted information on the government customers and diagnostic applications of the company.