SolarWinds hack was ‘biggest, most sophisticated attack’ of all time: Microsoft President

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A hacking campaign that has used a US tech company as a springboard to compromise a series of US government agencies is “the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen,” said the president of Microsoft Corp. Brad Smith.

The operation, which was identified in December and which the US government said was likely orchestrated by Russia, violated software created by SolarWinds Corp, giving hackers access to thousands of businesses and offices governments that used its products.

The hackers gained access to emails from the US Treasury, Justice, and Commerce departments and other agencies.

Cyber ​​security experts said it would take months to identify compromised systems and kick off hackers.

“I think from a software engineering perspective it’s probably fair to say that this is the biggest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen,” Smith said during ‘an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes”.

The flaw could have compromised as many as 18,000 SolarWinds customers who were using the company’s Orion network monitoring software, and likely counted on hundreds of engineers.

“When we looked at everything we saw at Microsoft, we wondered how many engineers were probably working on these attacks. And the answer we came up with was, well, definitely over 1,000, ”Smith said.

US intelligence services said last month that Russia was “probably” behind the SolarWinds breach, which they said appeared to be aimed at intelligence gathering rather than destructive acts.

Russia has denied any responsibility for the hacking campaign.