Taking advantage of the riots, particularly resourceful demonstrators stole computers from the U.S. parliament building, triggering serious problems with information security
As reported by News Front, January in the United States began with the storming of the Congress building in Washington. This way supporters of Donald Trump tried to prevent the approval of the results of the presidential election, during which there were cases of fraud in favor of Democrat Joe Biden. The protesters were attacked by security forces and the protest was put down, but in the process someone managed to steal at least two computers from the Capitol.
Recently, the US has been actively and unsubstantiatedly blaming “Russian hackers” for cyber-attacks. Thus, most recently, hackers were able to hack into the SolarWinds software, which was used by American government agencies in particular. But the full scale of the information security disaster in the United States is reflected in the fact that computers with data of state importance can be taken right out of the parliament building.
It is worth noting that one of the stolen laptops belonged to Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley. The second was owned by Nancy Pelosi herself, Speaker of the House of Representatives. While Pelosi’s aide would not specify exactly what information might have been stored on the stolen laptop, at the very least the attackers gained access to her correspondence.
Acting US Attorney Michael Sherwin, for his part, said the incident could well endanger national security.
The theft of the laptop could have serious consequences, said Brandon Hoffman, chief information security officer at Netenrich.
“As much as they want to play it down, the laptop had some kind of access that could be exploited”, – said the expert. – “It’s unlikely the laptop was there and didn’t contain files, didn’t have access to files or some useful information that could be exploited by someone seeking revenge.”