SolarWinds hackers were confirmed to have accessed thousands of email accounts of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). This just shows that the cybercriminals are still focusing on the U.S. government agencies.
HAMBURG, GERMANY - DECEMBER 28: Participant hold their laptops in front of an illuminated wall at the annual Chaos Computer Club (CCC) computer hackers' congress, called 29C3, on December 28, 2012 in Hamburg, Germany. The 29th Chaos Communication Congress (29C3) attracts hundreds of participants worldwide annually to engage in workshops and lectures discussing the role of technology in society and its future.
"After learning of the malicious activity, the [Office of the Chief Information Officer] eliminated the identified method by which the actor was accessing the O365 email environment," said the DOJ via TechRadar.
The agency added that they have no lead yet if their classified systems were also breached. The U.S Department of Justice noted that the number of potentially accessed O365 mailboxes appears to be limited to around 3%.
SolarWinds hackers breached 3,500 email accounts
Although the 3% might sound like a small number, it consists of around 3,500 email accounts, given that the U.S. agency employs more than 115,000 people.
However, they did not confirm if the compromised accounts or mailboxes belonged to specific individuals at the Department of Justice. They also didn't clarify of the hackers took a more scattergun method or approach.
BERLIN, GERMANY - DECEMBER 27: A participant looks at lines of code on a laptop on the first day of the 28th Chaos Communication Congress (28C3) - Behind Enemy Lines computer hacker conference on December 27, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. The Chaos Computer Club is Europe's biggest network of computer hackers and its annual congress draws up to 3,000 participants.
The hackers first attacked the giant software company SolarWinds, leading to a huge supply chain malware attack. About 18,000 individuals were affected since they used the company's Orion platform during the massive hack.
The attack also targeted private companies, government agencies, and other people who are using the vulnerable platform version. After the massive breach was discovered, security researchers claimed that the people involved in cyber crime were connected to the Russian state.
A Czech software development firm was accused
According to ZDNet's latest report, JetBrains was accused of being involved with the alleged Russian SolarWinds hackers. However, the Czech software development firm denied the accusation and reports of popular news platforms, such as The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
The claim states that the company is currently under investigation for possibly being involved in the SolarWinds massive hack, which affected thousands of companies around the world. However, Maxi Shafirov, the CEO of JetBrains, said that the software development company was unaware that it was under investigation for its role in the previous massive attack.
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Written by: Giuliano de Leon.
