Nuclear weapons agency breached in SolarWinds cyberattack: Reports

[Beet]

The agencies that maintain the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile are reportedly preparing to notify Congress that they have evidence showing their systems were breached by foreign hackers in a monthslong cyberespionage campaign that came to light this week.

Officials from National Nuclear Security Administration and its parent agency, the Energy Department, were "coordinating notifications" about the breach, which they said also affected the Federal Energy Regulation Commission, to House and Senate energy and armed services committees on Thursday, according to Politico.

Hackers were "able to do more damage at FERC than the other agencies," and officials were able to obtain evidence of "highly malicious activity," the report said.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/nuclear-weapons-agency-hacked-solarwinds-cyberattack

Apparently 18,000 companies have also been breached.

[T'Chenka]

Don't worry, Trump will sanction Russia very strongly for this.

[dead0man]

the govt spends billions every year in cybersecurity, but doesn't find out they've been hacked until it shows up in the newspapers.  It was started with a "back door" attack and these clowns in the govt want to force tech companies to put in back doors so the govt can snoop easier?


From Reuters

Security researcher Vinoth Kumar told Reuters that, last year, he alerted the company that anyone could access SolarWinds’ update server by using the password “solarwinds123”

“This could have been done by any attacker, easily,” Kumar said.

Neither the password nor the stolen access is considered the most likely source of the current intrusion, researchers said.

Others - including Kyle Hanslovan, the cofounder of Maryland-based cybersecurity company Huntress - noticed that, days after SolarWinds realized their software had been compromised, the malicious updates were still available for download.

The firm has long mooted the idea of spin-off of its managed service provider business and on Dec. 9 announced that Thompson would be replaced by Sudhakar Ramakrishna, the former chief executive of Pulse Secure. Three weeks ago, SolarWinds posted a job ad seeking a new vice president for security; the position is still listed as open.

stupid passwords, no VP for security and they can't even stop uploading a virus to customers days after a known breach.