The inside story of the infamous SolarWinds hack
Sudhakar Ramakrishna was sitting down to a birthday meal with his family when he received the call: SolarWinds had suffered a large-scale cyberattack. The date was December 12, 2020 and Ramakrishna was due to start as CEO in a few weeks’ time.
The full scope and severity of the incident was not immediately apparent, but he was still left with a decision to make. Would he abandon the ship, which had sprung a leak under the stewardship of the previous captain, or grab a bucket and begin to bail? A number of close confidants advised Ramakrishna to abandon the post, while others suggested his skill set and experience in cybersecurity made him the ideal person to preside over the recovery.
Although he took a beat to consider his options, the decision to stay the course was in the end a straightforward one, Ramakrishna told TechRadar Pro. The board was informed he would step back if it was decided SolarWinds would benefit from continuity, but that he was otherwise prepared to pilot the company through the crisis. In the weeks that followed, Ramakrishna began to collaborate with the executive team behind the scenes. The first priority was to find out exactly what had happened, and how, and the second was to formulate a plan of action that SolarWinds could bring to its customers, partners and the press.
