US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday (local time) said Russia was behind the cyberattack on several US government agencies that also hit targets worldwide, AFP reported. 

“There was a significant effort to use a piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside of US government systems,” Pompeo told The Mark Levin Show.

Earlier this week, at least two US government agencies’ systems were hacked, reportedly by Russian hackers. The US Treasury Department and Commerce department reported their systems were hacked.

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“This was a very significant effort, and I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity.”

According to some US media reports, the FBI was investigating a group working for the Russian foreign intelligence service, SVR. It also added that the breaches were taking place for months. Reportedly, the group had also hacked government agencies during the presidency of Barack Obama. 

According to Microsoft president Brad Smith, roughly 80% of the affected customers were located in the US, and other victims were found in Belgium, Britain, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Spain and the United Arab Emirates.

“It’s certain that the number and location of victims will keep growing,” Smith said.