Shortly before midnight on Sunday night, the National Security Council tweeted a warning about disinformation being circulated by text messages that falsely claims a national quarantine is being imposed because of COVID-19.
Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE. There is no national lockdown. @CDCgov has and will continue to post the latest guidance on #COVID19. #coronavirus
— NSC 45 Archived (@WHNSC45) March 16, 2020
According to Bloomberg News, the NSC tweet was related to a cyber-attack on the computer systems of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) on Sunday.
“The attack appears to have been intended to slow the agency’s systems down, but didn’t do so in any meaningful way,” Bloomberg reported.
“It doesn’t appear that the hackers took any data from the systems, one of the people said. HHS officials assume that it was a hostile foreign actor, but there is no definitive proof at this time.”
Bloomberg said it had not yet received official comments from HHS, the NSC or the White House.
