Companies are looking to launch digital fires across the globe, after IT software provider SolarWinds was scrapped to capture as many as 18,000 customers.
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While government departments from the Treasury Department to the Department of Defense have undoubtedly suffered as a result of the alleged breach of SolarWinds by Russian hackers, private agencies are scrambling to find out if they have been hit. and to what extent.
Cisco, a network giant, teamed up with Microsoft in confirming a breach, but like Redmond it believes the impact is limited, although investigations continue.
Demonstrates the range of direct signals that could have been hit in the widespread attacks, which are believed to have started with a tampered download of Orion SolarWinds software, credit score company Equifax and energy giant GE going through their logs looking for compromise signals.
“Following the announcement of the SolarWinds Orion Platform software attack, the Cisco Security team immediately began our established incident response processes to deal with the issue quickly and accurately, a Cisco spokesperson said. “While Cisco does not use SolarWinds for enterprise network management or auditing, we have identified and deployed software in a small number of laboratory environments and a limited number of staff endpoints. At this time, there is no known impact on Cisco offerings or products. We will continue to examine all aspects of this changing situation with the highest priority. “
Equifax is continuing to investigate but has not seen unauthorized behavior on its networks, according to a source familiar with the probe. They said the company was confident that even though the malware was on their servers, no data had been stolen.
A GE spokesman said the company was aware of a security incident reported by SolarWinds and was contacting the provider to understand the scope of the case. They are also doing a self-review.
Signs of vulnerability
The attacks show that the hackers were able to detect a capture gap affecting both the private and public sectors, and had the opportunity to take advantage of a large number of companies and government departments. But they also reveal that no matter who the attackers were, they only chose to steal data from a selection of thousands of victims, even where they had the opportunity to steal data from some of the largest businesses in the country. the world.
SolarWinds said the number of customers potentially affected by the attacks could be as high as 18,000. Reuters reported on Friday that Cox Communications had been hit with the malicious version of the SolarWinds device, but had not seen any major impact.
Government agencies affected include the Defense, Energy, Finance and Trade sectors. Mar Forbes previously reported, the DOJ is also a user of Orion SolarWinds, but has declined to comment on whether or not it was a victim.
Microsoft said Thursday it has been contacting 40 customers who have been hacked and whose data may be exposed. Most were based in the US but others were based around the world, from Mexico to the UK
Russia has refused to intervene in the attacks, even as Mike Pompeo and other sources blamed Putin ‘s rule.