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Anonymous ID: 5905f7 Dec. 15, 2020, 12:55 a.m. No.12035106   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5237 >>5433

Now Department of Homeland Security is revealed to have been hit by 'Russian' hackers too

 

https://twitter.com/DailyMail/status/1338766423213154307

 

Now Department of Homeland Security is revealed to have been hit by 'Russian' hackers too as scale of breaches linked to Putin's spies grows

DHS is latest department to be revealed to have been target of suspected Russian hackers

Emails sent by officials at DHS, which oversees border security and defense against hacking, were monitored by the hackers

Suspected Russian hackers used hijacked SolarWinds software updates to break into agencies, including the Treasury and Commerce departments

Moscow denied having any connection to the attacks

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and thousands of businesses scrambled Monday to investigate and respond to a sweeping hacking campaign that officials suspect was directed by the Russian government.

 

Emails sent by officials at DHS, which oversees border security and defense against hacking, were monitored by the hackers as part of the sophisticated series of breaches, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters Monday.

 

The attacks, first revealed Sunday, also hit the U.S. departments of Treasury and Commerce.

Technology company SolarWinds, which was the key steppingstone used by the hackers, said up to 18,000 of its customers had downloaded a compromised software update that allowed hackers to spy unnoticed on businesses and agencies for almost nine months.

 

The United States issued an emergency warning on Sunday, ordering government users to disconnect SolarWinds software which it said had been compromised by 'malicious actors.'

That warning came after Reuters reported suspected Russian hackers had used hijacked SolarWinds software updates to break into multiple American government agencies, including the Treasury and Commerce departments. Moscow denied having any connection to the attacks.

One of the people familiar with the hacking campaign said the critical network that DHS' cybersecurity division uses to protect infrastructure, including the recent elections, had not been breached.

 

DHS said it was aware of the reports, without directly confirming them or saying how badly it was affected.

 

DHS is a massive bureaucracy among other things responsible for securing the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine.

 

The cybersecurity unit there, known as CISA, has been upended by President Donald Trump's firing of head Chris Krebs after Krebs called the presidential election the most secure in American history. His deputy and the elections chief have also left.

 

SolarWinds said in a regulatory disclosure it believed the attack was the work of an 'outside nation state' that inserted malicious code into updates of its Orion network management software issued between March and June this year.

 

'SolarWinds currently believes the actual number of customers that may have had an installation of the Orion products that contained this vulnerability to be fewer than 18,000,' it said.

The company did not respond to requests for comment about the exact number of compromised customers or the extent of any breaches at those organisations.

It said it was not aware of vulnerabilities in any of its other products and it was now investigating with help from U.S. law enforcement and outside cybersecurity experts.

SolarWinds boasts 300,000 customers globally, including the majority of the United States' Fortune 500 companies and some of the most sensitive parts of the U.S. and British governments - such as the White House, defence departments and both countries' signals intelligence agencies.

Investigators around the world are now scrambling to find out who was hit.

A British government spokesman said the United Kingdom was not currently aware of any impact from the hack but was still investigating.

Three people familiar with the investigation into the hack told Reuters that any organisation running a compromised version of the Orion software would have had a 'backdoor' installed in their computer systems by the attackers.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9051635/Global-security-teams-assess-impact-suspected-Russian-cyber-attack.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailus