It's not in their interest to issue a strong denial if they know the story is going to be confirmed later. It just makes them look worse than if they'd issued s

It's not in their interest to issue a strong denial if they know the story is going to be confirmed later. It just makes them look worse than if they'd issued some generic language about how much they care about security. So either they genuinely believe the story is false, or they believe it's impossible to prove, and given the scope of the story I'm not sure there's a difference.