SolarWinds was previously hacked by Russian hackers, which made huge headlines across the globe. Right now, the Texas-based software provider is facing an SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) investigation after the security agency discovered that some of its largest investors sold their shares, which cost around $315 million in total, a few days before the massive online attack.
Lt. Mike Baute from Florida's Child Predator CyberCrime Unit talks with a man on instant messenger during the unveiling of a new CyberCrimes office March 7, 2008 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The person on the other side of the chat told Lt. Baute, who is saying he is a 14-year-old girl, that he is a 31-year-old male and sent him a photograph of himself. According to current statistics, more than 77 million children regularly use the Internet.
Aside from the current SEC probe, SolarWinds also confirmed that other government investigations will arrive related to the cyber attack. These include the Justice Department and state attorneys general.
"We are cooperating and providing information in connection with these investigations and inquiries," said SolarWinds via The Washington Post.
The massive SolarWinds attack leads many authorities and critics to question the company's security. Some Congress members even asked Sudhakar, SolarWinds' chief executive, if the private companies can trust the giant software provider.
SEC to investigate SolarWinds' largest investors
There are a lot of things that are still unclear regarding the previous massive SolarWinds breach. These include the sudden decision of the company's biggest investors to sell their shares.
The weird thing about their decision is that they sold their shares, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, days before the attack. Since sold it in advance, the investors were able to avoid more than $100 million loss.
FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia, SolarWinds CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna and Microsoft President Brad Smith testify during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on February 23, 2021 in Washington, DC. The hearing focused on the 2020 cyberattack that resulted in a series of data breaches within several agencies and departments in the U.S. federal government.
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On the other hand, other companies that didn't withdraw their shares lost huge amounts of their money. These include Canada's largest pension fund since its new shares declined more than 40% after the massive cyberattack happened.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said that it is going to investigate the company's largest investors and their previous stock sales. The security agency confirmed that they are going to determine if the investors knew about the massive hack before it even happened.
Although this is the case, the SEC added that its investigation would still take years before it concludes.
The possible reason why SolarWinds was hacked
Previously, ZDNet reported that the software giant was hacked because of a simple reason. Security experts claimed that the Russian hackers were able to breach SolarWinds software because it has a very simple password, which is "solarwinds123." Kevin Thompson, the company's CEO, claimed that it all started after an intern set the company's important password to "solarwinds123." He added that the staff even shared the password on GitHub. If you want to know info about this, you can click here.
For more news updates about SolarWinds and its upcoming investigation, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.
Related Article: SolarWinds Executives Blame Intern for Leaking Password 'solarwinds123,' Leading to Largest Security Breach in The US
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Written by: Giuliano de Leon.
