Members of the Obama administration have temporarily lost some Internet connectivity after suspicious activity was detected on an unclassified network serving the Executive Office of the President, a White House official told NBC News on Tuesday.
The official wouldn't describe the "activity of concern" or say when it was detected. Efforts to mitigate the activity are "ongoing, and some have resulted in some temporary outages and loss of connectivity for our users," the official said, adding that no computers and systems had been damaged.
The Department of Homeland Security separately said Tuesday it's increasing security at some federal buildings in Washington and other major U.S. cities in the wake of threats from terrorist organizations and recent attacks on the Canadian Parliament and military personnel, as well as other Western government institutions.
IN-DEPTH
- U.S. Tightens Federal Security After Threats, Attacks in Canada
- Cyber Defenders in Short Supply as Hacking Wars Escalate
— Peter Alexander and M. Alex Johnson
