Russia hackers are believed to be behind the infiltration and theft of sensitive JPMorgan Chase & Co. data mid-August.
Two sources close to an FBI investigation told Bloomberg that the hackers used “zero day” attacks (i.e., previously unknown vulnerabilities) to steal gigabytes of data, the news service reported Wednesday.
Bloomberg’s sources believe the level of sophistication behind the attack bears the hallmark of state-sponsored hackers, but it is possible that the theft could have been perpetrated by cyber criminals acting on their own.
“The way the Russians do it, to the extent we can see into the process, is they encourage certain targets,” James Lewis, director of the Strategic Technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told Bloomberg. “The Russians typically keep open the options to do something more, and the question now is what would trigger that and what would our response be.”
Bloomberg’s calls to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for comment were not returned before publication.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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