US State Department's unclassified email system hacked

Washington: The US State Department's unclassified email systems were the victim of a cyberattack in recent weeks, around the same time as White House systems were breached, a senior US official said on Monday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said none of the department's classified systems was compromised. Portions of its unclassified systems have been shut down to improve their security but should be back online shortly.

"The department recently detected activity of concern in portions of its unclassified email system. There was no compromise of any of the department's classified systems," said the senior US official.

"The department is implementing improvements to the security of its main unclassified network during a scheduled outage of some internet linked systems," the official added.

"This has impacted some of our unclassified email traffic and our access to public websites from our main unclassified system. We expect our systems to be up and running soon."

The US official said the State Department breach was part of the same incident reported by the White House's Executive Office of the President (EOP) recently.

The State Department's network was infiltrated last month, but the department did not disconnect the affected systems until over the weekend, according to federal technology information website nextgov.com.

It said there was abnormal activity in the email system as recently as late October.

The State Department breach follows similar intrusions disclosed in recent months at the White House, the Office of Personnel Management and, just last week, US Postal Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

USPS said it was the victim of an intrusion that may have compromised the personal information of more than 800,000 employees, as well as data on customers who contacted its call center during the first eight months of this year.

In the NOAA case, four of the agency's websites were affected.

The State Department cyberattack was first reported Sunday by The Associated Press.