Official: Non-state actor likely to blame for cyberattack

WASHINGTON -- National Intelligence director James Clapper said it appears a "non-state actor" was behind a massive cyberattack last week that briefly blocked access to websites including Twitter and Netflix.

Clapper said investigators are gathering a lot of data, and preliminary indications are a non-state actor is to blame.

But he said he wouldn't want to rule out whether a nation state might have been behind it.

Clapper spoke Tuesday at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

On Friday, cyberattacks crippled a major internet firm, repeatedly disrupting the availability of popular websites across the United States.

Members of a shadowy hacker group that calls itself New World Hackers claimed responsibility for the attack, but that claim could not be verified.