Russian Ransomware Group Breached Federal Agencies

The Department of Energy and several other federal agencies were compromised in a Russian cyber-extortion gang’s global hack of a file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments, but the impact was not expected to be great, Homeland Security officials said.

But for others among what could be hundreds of victims from industry to higher education — including patrons of at least two state motor vehicle agencies — Thursday's hack was beginning to show some serious impacts.

Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters that unlike...