Nearly lost in the tumult of the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and the excitement of Joe Biden’s inauguration is the continuing fallout from the massive data breach of SolarWinds Corp. by suspected Russian hackers. As the new team settles into office, what can it do to keep the nation safe in cyberspace?
Let’s begin with the scale of the hack. SolarWinds was a prime vendor to tens of thousands of clients, including hundreds of Fortune 500 enterprises and nearly the entire U.S. government. It says at least 18,000 entities were affected.
SolarWinds provides an important service: ensuring that software versions are updated in a timely and efficient manner for their clients. This gave it access to customers’ entire networks and databases. By breaking into SolarWinds, the hackers — allegedly the Russian unit known as Cozy Bear — had instant access to that huge roster of firms.