Security News
Cybersecurity companies and U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating the possible role played by a product from JetBrains in the recently discovered SolarWinds hack, according to reports. The New York Times and Reuters reported on Wednesday that cybersecurity experts and government agencies are trying to determine whether the hackers that targeted SolarWinds may have abused software created by JetBrains to achieve their goal.
JetBrains' CEO, Maxim Shafirov, denied reports from multiple news outlets that the company played a role in the SolarWinds supply chain attack. TeamCity, a continuous integration and deployment system used for unit testing and code quality analysis, is the JetBrains product that officials are reportedly looking into as a potential attack vector used by the SolarWinds hackers.
The SolarWinds security breach disclosed last month, which US authorities believe was of Russian origin and led to the compromise of at least 18,000 organizations, may have been enabled in part by software from JetBrains. One of these, build management and continuous integration system TeamCity, is used by SolarWinds as part of its application build process.
The Justice Department disclosed on Wednesday that it was among the federal agencies harmed by a massive breach of government networks that U.S. officials have linked to Russia. There are no indications that classified systems were affected, the agency said.
The U.S. government on Wednesday announced the launch of another bug bounty program conducted in collaboration with hacker-powered cybersecurity platform HackerOne. Hack the Army 3.0, whose goal is to help the U.S. Army secure its digital assets and protect its systems against cyberattacks, takes place between January 6 and February 17, and it's open to both millitary and civilian white hat hackers.
A class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of SolarWinds investors this week over the cybersecurity breach suffered by the Texas-based IT management solutions provider. The complaint names SolarWinds, as well as Kevin Thompson, who served as the company's CEO until just days before the incident was disclosed, and Barton Kalsu, executive VP and CFO of SolarWinds.
Top national security agencies confirmed Tuesday that Russia was likely responsible for a massive hack of U.S. government departments and corporations, rejecting President Donald Trump's claim that China might be to blame. The agencies made clear the Russian operation was "Ongoing" and indicated the hunt for threats was not over.
The Cyber Unified Coordination Group said today that a Russian-backed Advanced Persistent Threat group is likely behind the SolarWinds hack. The UCG was established by the National Security Council after the SolarWinds supply chain attack to help the intelligence agencies better coordinate the government's response efforts surrounding this ongoing espionage campaign.
The New York Times has an in-depth article on the latest information about the SolarWinds hack. Initial estimates were that Russia sent its probes only into a few dozen of the 18,000 government and private networks they gained access to when they inserted code into network management software made by a Texas company named SolarWinds.
It is believed that the recently disclosed attack targeting Texas-based IT management solutions provider SolarWinds resulted in threat actors gaining access to the networks of more than 250 organizations, according to reports. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the SolarWinds supply chain attack is believed to have impacted as many as 250 government agencies and businesses.