SolarWinds hackers could have been waylaid by simple countermeasure -US officials
Following a decade-old security recommendation could have helped stymie the Russian hackers who ran amok across federal government networks last year, the Department of Homeland Security's digital defense arm said in a letter sent earlier this month.
As the United States prepares to pour billions of dollars into shoring up its cybersecurity following a series of dramatic intrusions by foreign hackers, the acknowledgement from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) highlights how basic digital security measures can help defeat or at least mitigate the impact of even the most severe breaches.
The June 3 letter, sent by CISA to Senator Ron Wyden, concerned the sprawling espionage campaign that hijacked software from Texas-based SolarWinds Corp (SWI.N) to compromise nine government departments, a months-long effort that led to the theft of thousands of U.S. officials' emails and is already racking up hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup costs.
