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Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith delivered a speech at the Web Summit 2017 in Lisbon on November 8, 2017 (Photo by PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA / AFP via Getty Images)
To the press room
UPDATE 2:30 p.m. PT – Monday February 15, 2021
The Microsoft president said the SolarWinds hack was the biggest the world has ever seen. In an interview on Sunday, Brad Smith said the malicious operation required more than 1,000 engineers.
The hackers allegedly violated the SolarWinds software, giving them access to various businesses and government offices. The US government has said Russian criminals are the likely culprits and added that the hack was aimed at collecting data rather than destroying it.
FILE – This August 4, 2009, a file photo shows the United States Chamber of Commerce building in Washington. The White House said a senior national security official was leading the US response to a massive breach by government departments and private companies discovered late last year. (AP Photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta, file.)
Smith said the malware was installed via a company-wide update.
“I think from a software engineering perspective, I think it’s fair to say that this is the biggest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen,” Smith said. “When this update was released to 18,000 organizations around the world, so did this malware.
Cyber security experts are trying to determine the full extent of the attack and have said it would be difficult to completely remove infiltrators from the system.
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