The SolarWinds hackers allegedly got their hands on info on counterintelligence inquiries, the US’ rule on authorizing Russian personalities and its reply to COVID-19.
The campaign was extensively exposed when it was ultimately outed late last year. The government of the US titles the outbreak on Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, which disagrees with any participation in the campaign.
Despite months of analysis, which has recognised several targets, including Solar Winds and Microsoft, there have been practically no exposures about the purposes of the attackers.
However, anonymous sources have now told Reuters that the attackers were hoping to gather intelligence on the US government’s decision making policy.
Intelligence Loss- SolarWinds hack
Recently Microsoft exposed Russia as a prominent supporter for conducting cybercrimes using state-sponsored actors.
In their yearly Digital Defense Report, Microsoft shared that the Solar Winds attackers were excavating for government material on authorisations and other Russia related policies, along with information regarding the methods the country employs to catch Russian hackers.
Unidentified sources involved in the US government’s enquiry into the matter exposed that they could see the terms that the attackers used as they searched through the US government files, and one of the keywords searched was “sanctions”.
Speaking to Reuters, Chris Krebs, who is the former head of Cyber security USA and infrastructure security agency (CISA) and now an adviser to several firms including SolarWinds, said the mutual descriptions of the attackers’ goals sounds valid.
During the SolarWinds campaign, the attackers accomplished breaking about nice federal agencies, read emails of numerous government departments, made away with confidential source code from Microsoft and other firms, and more.
Despite all this, one of the folks involved in the inquiry went as far as to tell Reuters that the revelation of counter-intelligence matters being followed against Russia, was the worst of the losses.
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