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Hackers Targeted Solarwinds Earlier than Previously Known

Associated Press

   WASHINGTON - The hackers who carried out the massive SolarWinds
   intrusion were in the software company's system as early as January
   2019, months earlier than previously known, the company's top official
   said Wednesday.

   SolarWinds had previously traced the origins of the hack to the fall of
   2019 but now believes that hackers were doing"very early recon
   activities"as far back as the prior January, according to Sudhakar
   Ramakrishna, the company's president and CEO.

   "The tradecraft that the attackers used was extremely well done and
   extremely sophisticated, where they did everything possible to hide in
   plain sight, so to speak,"Ramakrishna said during a discussion hosted
   by the RSA Conference.

   The SolarWinds hack, which was first reported lastDecemberand which
   U.S. officials have linked to the Russian government, is one in a
   series of major breaches that has prompted a major cybersecurity focus
   from the Biden administration. By seeding the company's widely used
   software update with malicious code, hackers were able to penetrate the
   networks of multiple U.S. government agencies and private sector
   corporations in an apparent act of cyber-espionage. The U.S. imposed
   sanctions against Russia last month.

   Also Wednesday, Ramakrishna apologized for the way the company blamed
   an intern earlier this year during congressional testimony for poor
   password security protocols. That public statement, he said, was"not
   appropriate."

   "I have long held a belief system and an attitude that you never flog
   failure. You want your employees, including interns, to make mistakes
   and learn from those mistakes and together we become better,"he
   added."Obviously you don't want to make the same mistakeover and over
   again. You want to improve."