The U.S. government has long known about its cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and the problem is only getting worse, President Barack Obama said Monday.
"We have known for a long time that there are significant vulnerabilities, and that these vulnerabilities are going to accelerate as time goes by, both in systems within government and within the private sector," Obama said at news conference from the Group of Seven summit in Germany.
Obama declined to say who the U.S. thinks is responsible for a massive hack attack that exposed the data of about 4 million current and former federal employees. Several media reports have indicated, however, that investigators believe Chinese hackers are to blame.
The president urged Congress to move ahead by passing cybersecurity legislation to deal with the escalating digital threats.
Read More: Federal Data Breach: Can the Government Protect Itself From Hackers?
Part of the problem is that the federal government works on "very old systems," he said, adding that the recent breach was discovered because of efforts to install newer and better systems.
"Both state and non-state actors are sending everything they've got at trying to breach these systems," he said. "And this problem is not going to go away—it is going to accelerate."
