Russian government hackers breach US government departments

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...781_story.html

Russian government hackers breached the Treasury and Commerce departments, along with other U.S. government agencies, as part of a global espionage campaign that stretches back months, according to people familiar with the matter.

Officials were scrambling over the weekend to assess the nature and extent of the intrusions and implement effective countermeasures, but initial signs suggested the breach was long-running and significant, the people familiar with the matter said.

The Russian hackers, known by the nicknames APT29 or Cozy Bear, are part of that nation’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, and they breached email systems in some cases, said the people familiar with the intrusions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...aff_story.html

Russia is behind the massive, ongoing cyber spy campaign against the federal government and private sector, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday — the first Trump administration official to publicly blame Moscow for the computer hacks.

“This was a very significant effort, and I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity,” said Pompeo in an interview with “The Mark Levin Show.”

No paywall link

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55374945

[joglynne]

A further article by the Wahington Post, .. Dec. 18, 2020 at 12:42 a.m. GMT

Biden and lawmakers raise alarms over cybersecurity breach amid Trump’s silence

Democrats and some Republicans raised the alarm Thursday about a massive and growing cybersecurity breach that many experts blame on Russia, with President-elect Joe Biden implicitly criticizing the Trump administration for allowing the hacking attack to occur.

“We need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant cyber attacks in the first place,” Biden said in a statement. “Our adversaries should know that, as president, I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation.”

President Trump, by contrast, has said nothing about the hack affecting numerous federal agencies as well as U.S. companies. U.S. national security agencies are still assessing the scope and severity of the breach, which was discovered by a commercial firm.

The president’s silence about an organized attack on the U.S. government marks the latest example of his persistent reluctance to criticize Russia, which U.S. intelligence agencies have accused of interfering in the 2016 election to help Trump. Throughout his presidency, Trump has contradicted his own government’s findings about 2016 election hacking and disinformation efforts, and he has publicly accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s word that Moscow was blameless.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...036_story.html

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by joglynne

A further article by the Wahington Post, .. Dec. 18, 2020 at 12:42 a.m. GMT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...036_story.html

Disappointed but past being surprised that Trump has not commented.

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Disappointed but past being surprised that Trump has not commented.

[mrmistoffelees]

Thankfully we don’t run solar winds orions in our data centres. We were able to issue clear communications to our customers.

Interestingly, Microsoft also got hit by it

https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecu...d-massive-hack

Attorney General William Barr on Monday said that Russia is likely behind the unprecedented hack into multiple federal agencies and thousands of private entities, becoming the second senior administration official to place the blame on Moscow in contradiction to statements by President Trump.

The attorney general said that he agrees with the assessment by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the Russians were likely behind the hack into the third-party software developer SolarWinds that allowed access to government agencies and raised fury in Congress over whether such an attack amounted to an act of war.

“From the information I have, I agree with Secretary Pompeo’s assessment, it certainly appears to be the Russians but I’m not going to discuss it beyond that,” Barr said at a news conference.