US Joint Chiefs of Staff emails targeted by Russian hackers

The hacking group that targeted unclassified email systems at the U.S. Department of State and the White House is believed to have also compromised a network used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a body of senior U.S. military leaders.

The email system used by the group was compromised in the last week of July, according to reports by NBC News and the Daily Beast. NBC said it affected around 4,000 staff who work at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Targets were said to have been sent spear phishing emails — customized messages that likely appeared to come from trusted contacts with embedded links to documents or other content. When clicked, those links would have resulted in the download of malware that compromised their computers.

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