Apparently, the full picture was not shared, as the breach ended up being a whole lot more intrusive than what was originally thought. Officials have also conceded that sensitive information that were stored in the unclassified system were accessed by the hackers, which certainly does not bode well no matter which way you look at it.
The hack was discovered in October last year, which eventually led to a partial shutdown of the White House email system. The New York Times reported, “The hackers, who also got deeply into the State Department’s unclassified system, do not appear to have penetrated closely guarded servers that control the message traffic from Mr Obama’s BlackBerry, which he or an aide carries constantly.” Certainly this is scary, and hopefully the information gained by the hackers will not be used for nefarious purposes if possible.