Washington DC, Jul 31 (EFE).- Employee e-mail accounts at more than 20 Attorney offices in the United States were compromised by SolarWinds cyber attack, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement Friday.

The cyberattack allegedly began in 2019 and penetrated the systems of the US government and large companies through a malicious program installed into the software system of the company SolarWinds.

The DOJ statement included a list of 27 district prosecutors in 15 states where hackers accessed "one or more" e-mail accounts between May 7 and Dec. 27, 2020.

These include offices in the districts of California, Columbia, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

The data compromised includes emails and attachments sent, received, and stored and attachments found within those accounts during that time, according to the statement.

DOJ said that while some districts were affected to a lesser extent, the cyberattacks accessed at least 80 percent of employees' email accounts at the offices in the eastern, northern, southern, and western districts of New York.

On Apr. 15, the US imposed sanctions on Moscow for its alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election and its role in SolarWinds cyberattack.

That day, the White House formally accused Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, of having perpetrated the massive cyberattack.

On its part, the Russian Federal Security Service or FSB - formerly KGB - described the accusations against Moscow as unfounded, and claimed that Washington did not share any data concerning the involvement of Russian citizens in the cyberattack. EFE

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