US' Health and Human Services Department suffers cyberattack

The US Health and Human Services Department (HHS) suffered a cyberattack on its computer system on Sunday night, during the nation’s response to the COVID-19 emergency.
“We are aware of a cyber incident related to the Health and Human Services computer networks, and the federal government is investigating this incident thoroughly,” John Ullyot, a spokesman for the National Security Council said in a statement.
The cyberattack was called a campaign of disruption and disinformation that was aimed at undermining the response to the Coronavirus pandemic, according to Bloomberg’s report.
The incident did not impact HHS functions or removed any data, however it overloaded HHS servers with millions of hits. HHS officials assume that it was a hostile foreign actor, although this has not yet been confirmed.
The National Security Council (NSC) tweeted on Sunday before midnight that “text message rumors of a national quarantine are fake and that there is no national lockdown,” as the government realised that false information was circulating.
As Bloomberg reported, the tweet was prompted by a message from an unknown sender warning that the person’s “military friends” had heard in a briefing that the “president will order a two week mandatory quarantine for the nation.”
Officials believe the NSC tweet is related to the HHS cyberattack.