A cyberattack affected the US Department of Health and Human Services Sunday night, Bloomberg reports.
In the wake of the attack — which came as HHS grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic — the US National Security Council tweeted that text messages describing a national lockdown due to the outbreak were fake. Sources tell Bloomberg the NSC tweet was related to the HHS cyberattack and the circulation of misinformation.
Bloomberg adds that the hack involved multiple incidents and overloaded the HHS servers with millions of hits over numerous hours in an effort to slow the department's computer systems down. It notes that while the source of the intrusion is unknown, officials are assuming it was a hostile foriegn actor, but also that it appears that no data was taken from any of the systems.
The US National Security Agency and Cyber Command are looking into the matter, according to Bloomberg.