Though the lovably adorable nickname "Dancing Panda" certainly conjures images of, well, dancing pandas and other staples of cutedom, the name has far more sinister connotations. Perplexingly dubbed "Dancing Panda," a massive email breach circa 2010 instigated by Chinese hackers against top U.S. government officials is reportedly still very much in progress. According to NBC News, those impacted include "all top national security and trade officials" within the Obama administration.
Though this particular five-years-deep attack hasn't compromised any secure (as in ".gov") email accounts, the personal accounts of high-ranking officials were readily exposed and exploited for the purposes of sharing malware via each account's linked social media profiles. According to Mashable, the breach is but one of at least 30 so-called "intrusion sets" consisting of roughly 600 singular cyber attacks.
Though the NSA is not currently commenting on the specifics surrounding this ongoing breach, others are taking note of the timeline overlap of Hillary Clinton's much-discussed use of a private email account during her tenure as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013. Neither the NSA or any other organization has revealed the exact names or depths of exploitation for those impacted, though the seeming surge in reported hacks over the past decade suggests a need for thorough investigation.
