Russia had nothing to do with alleged monitoring by hackers of internal email traffic at the US Treasury and Commerce departments, the Kremlin Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

“Once again, I can reject these accusations and once again I want to remind you that it was President (Vladimir) Putin who proposed that the American side agree and conclude agreements (with Russia) on cyber security,” said Peskov, saying Washington had not responded to the offer.

“As for the rest, if there have been attacks for many months, and the Americans could not do anything about it, it is probably not worth immediately groundlessly blaming the Russians. We didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Earlier, media outlets reported that hackers broke into the networks of federal agencies including the Treasury and Commerce departments

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity arm are investigating what experts and former officials said appeared to be a large-scale penetration of US government agencies, Associated Press reported.

Reuters news agency quoted people familiar with the matter that the hackers “were believed to be working for Russia” and that they feared the hacks uncovered so far may be the tip of the iceberg.

Source: Agencies