US officials issue 'emergency' cybersecurity order after hackers breach at least one government agency
Source: CNN Politics
PUBLISHED Sep 25, 2025, 6:14 PM ET
US cyber officials issued an “emergency directive” Thursday ordering federal agencies to defend their networks against an “advanced” group of hackers that have breached at least one agency in an apparent espionage campaign.
Government officials have not commented on who is behind the hacks, but private experts say they believe the hackers are state-backed and based in China. The hackers have been exploiting previously unknown flaws in software made by Cisco for several months.
“We are aware of hundreds of these devices [running the affected Cisco software] being in the federal government,” Chris Butera, a senior official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters. The directive will help officials understand “the full scope of the compromise across federal agencies,” Butera said.
Unit 42, a division of cyber firm Palo Alto Networks, told CNN that they believe the hackers are based in China. But a slew of other hacking groups could try to exploit the vulnerabilities now that the issue is public and a software “patch,” or fix, is available.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/25/politics/hackers-breach-us-government
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