U.S. State Department email system down after &;suspicious activity

USPA News - The U.S. State Department has taken the unprecedented step of shutting down its unclassified email system after suspicious activity was detected, U.S. officials said on Sunday, adding that its classified systems were not affected by the apparent cyber attack. It is unclear when the suspicious activity occurred that led to a shutdown of the State Department`s unclassified email system on late Friday.

"The Department recently detected activity of concern in portions of its unclassified email system. There was no compromise of any of the Department`s classified systems," a senior State Department official said. It was not known whether someone was able to breach the unclassified email system and, if so, if any information was taken. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the department was in the process of implementing improvements to the security of its main unclassified network, which forced the shutdown of some internet-linked systems. "This has impacted some of our unclassified email traffic and our access to public web sites from our main unclassified system," the official said. Spokespersons for the department asked journalists to contact them through Gmail accounts instead as the outage continued into Sunday night. "We expect our systems to be up and running soon," the official added.