Last week, US officials reported that SolarWinds, a software company providing network and system monitoring support for US federal agencies, Fortune 500 companies and a host of other entities, had been breached in a months-long hack attack which began in March. The Trump administration seems divided on who to blame.
At least two dozen entities including corporations, at least one state’s hospitals department and a university were affected by the recent Solar Winds hack attack, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
The non-corporate victims were said to include Kent State University and the California Department of State Hospitals.
A Cisco spokesperson confirmed to WSJ that the malicious software used in the hack had been discovered in some employee and lab systems, but added that there had been “no known impact to Cisco offers or products.” An Intel spokesperson similarly said that it had found no evidence of hackers using the malicious software backdoor hidden in an update, although it had been downloaded and run.
A representative from Deloitte also said that it did not see any “indications of unauthorized access to our systems at this time,” but noted the company had “taken steps to address” the spyware. VMware, Nvidia and Belkin also indicated that they have yet to identify any negative impact from the corrupted update.
Kent State said it was still “evaluating this serious matter,” while the California Department of State Hospitals said the state was working with federal and state agencies to address the potential harm done.
Investigators still aren’t certain what the hackers may have been after or what data specifically they managed to compromise or steal. WSJ speculates that targets likely included state secrets and internal communications between officials, and on the business end, emails by corporate executives, documents about sensitive technologies, or the means to hack into even more systems at a later date.
One of the companies rumoured to have been hacked includes Dominion Voting Systems, the voting machine company accused by the Trump campaign of involvement in a Democratic Party-run vote fraud campaign in the November election. The rumours prompted Dominion to issue a statement saying that it does not use the Orion software. It does, however, use a SolarWinds FTP file transfer platform.
Blame Game
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Moscow for the hack on Friday, saying there were signs Russia was “pretty clearly” responsible. A day later, President Trump appeared to dismiss the Russia claims, saying it was China that “may” have been behind the hack attack.
Both countries have dismissed the claims on Monday, with Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling them “unfounded” and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin accusing Washington of mudslinging “in an attempt to tarnish China’s image.”
Chris Krebs, the recently fired director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, took partial responsibility for the breach on Monday, saying it happened on his watch, before adding that “a bunch of other folks” also “missed it.” The official, who was fired by Trump on 17 November for contradicting Trump on alleged election fraud, also urged Americans not to “conflate voting system security and SolarWinds.”
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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