Last year, some of US President Barack Obama's messages fell into the hands of Russian hackers during the breach of White House systems.
Despite the fact that hackers were able to dig deep into the unclassified system, the classified White House networks were not compromised, the New York Times reports. The servers that control traffic on Barack Obama also remained secure.
According to officials involved in the investigation, the hack largely affected several people within the White House with unclassified email and communications records, the Times reports. Barack Obama's personal email account was not compromised, but a large portion of his correspondence was leaked from the accounts of people he frequently communicated with.
The White House suffers numerous cyberattacks every day, the Times reports, but this particular attack was unprecedented, and it was highly targeted.
“It was one of the most sophisticated attacks we have seen,” a senior official told the Times.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon revealed that Russia also breached their own unclassified networks this year, but the White House did not provide details on any similarities between the two attacks.
Many high-level White House employees have two computers: one operating on a secure, classified network, and the other on unclassified networks, according to the Times.
However, it is possible that sensitive, policy-related information was found on unclassified networks.
Senior officials have known about the severity of the breach for months, but only disclosed it to the public this week. No details have been released on how many emails the hackers obtained, or how many contained sensitive information.
