‘It’s going to take a lot of digging’: The Pentagon’s long search to see if anyone’s hiding in its networks
Andrew Eversden and Mark Pomerleau
WASHINGTON – The military and intelligence community is scrambling to conduct a daunting hunt across disconnected networks to assess potential damage from an extensive federal cybersecurity breach by suspected Russian hackers.
As it searches for lurkers, one complicating factor is that the cybersecurity arm of the Department of Homeland Security warned Thursday that hackers used other means to access government and business networks beyond a software platform from contractor SolarWinds, used by the Pentagon, the military and intelligence offices. That network management platform was “not the only initial infection vector,†the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency alert said.
The adversary was patient, well-resourced and used advanced techniques to mask its command-and-control communications, the agency said. All of those traits make crews’ search for damage or proof of a breach that much more difficult, officials told C4ISRNET.
https://www.c4isrnet.com/cyber/2020/12/17/its-going-to-take-a-lot-of-digging-the-pentagons-long-search-to-see-if-anyones-hiding-in-its-networks/
