The United Nations has been hacked.
An internal confidential document from the United Nations Office of Information and Technology, obtained by The Associated Press, says dozens of servers were “compromised” at the U.N. offices in Geneva and Vienna including the U.N. human rights office, which has often been a lightning rod of criticism from autocratic governments for its calling-out of rights abuses.
One U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP on Tuesday the attack that first turned up over the summer appeared “sophisticated” and that the extent of the damage remained unclear. System security has been reinforced.
The official also said the attack was so sophisticated that it was possible a state-backed actor may have been behind it, according to AP. Jake Williams, CEO of data firm Rendition Infosec and a former U.S. government hacker told the AP that the incident "definitely looks like Espionage.
U.N. Spokesman Stephane Dujjaric told the AP the organization did not yet have enough information to identify who was behind the hack.
U.N human rights office spokesman Rupert Colville told AP "nothing confidential was compromised" and the UN faces "daily attempts to get into our computer systems."
Dujjaric however, said in an e-mail to AP that the hack, which "resulted in a compromise of core infrastructure components" at the U.N. offices was "determined to be serious." The servers affected contained "non-sensitive, test data."
