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* Hacking
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HACK MAY HAVE EXPOSED DEEP US SECRETS; DAMAGE YET UNKNOWN
By FRANK BAJAKDecember 15, 2020
1 of 2
FILE - The U.S. Treasury Department building viewed from the Washington
Monument, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2019, in Washington. Hackers got into computers
at the U.S. Treasury Department and possibly other federal agencies, touching
off a government response involving the National Security Council. Security
Council spokesperson John Ullyot said Sunday, Dec. 13, 2020 that the government
is aware of reports about the hacks. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, file)
BOSTON (AP) — Some of America’s most deeply held secrets may have been stolen in
a disciplined, monthslong operation being blamed on elite Russian government
hackers. The possibilities of what might have been purloined are mind-boggling.
Could hackers have obtained nuclear secrets? COVID-19 vaccine data? Blueprints
for next-generation weapons systems?
It will take weeks, maybe years in some cases, for digital sleuths combing
through U.S. government and private industry networks to get the answers. These
hackers are consummate pros at covering their tracks, experts say. Some theft
may never be detected.
What’s seems clear is that this campaign — which cybersecurity experts says
exhibits the tactics and techniques of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency
— will rank among the most prolific in the annals of cyberespionage.
U.S. government agencies, including the Treasury and Commerce departments, were
among dozens of high-value public- and private-sector targets known to have been
infiltrated as far back as March through a commercial software update
distributed to thousands of companies and government agencies worldwide. A
Pentagon statement Monday indicated it used the software. It said it had “issued
guidance and directives to protect” its networks. It would not say — for
“operational security reasons” — whether any of its systems may have been
hacked.
Read More:
* – US agencies, companies secure networks after huge hack
* – EXPLAINER: How bad is the hack that targeted US agencies?
* – Cybersecurity firm FireEye says was hacked by nation state
On Tuesday, acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller told CBS News there was so far
no evidence of compromise.
In the months since the update went out, the hackers carefully exfiltrated data,
often encrypting it so it wasn’t clear what was being taken, and expertly
covering their tracks.
Thomas Rid, a Johns Hopkins cyberconflict expert, said the campaign’s likely
efficacy can be compared to Russia’s three-year 1990s “Moonlight Maze” hacking
of U.S. government targets, including NASA and the Pentagon. A U.S.
investigation determined the height of the documents stolen — if printed out and
piled up — would triple the height of the Washington Monument.
In this case “several Washington Monument piles of documents that they took from
different government agencies is probably a realistic estimate,” Rid said. “How
would they use that? They themselves most likely don’t know yet.”
The Trump administration has not said which agencies were hacked. And so far no
private-sector victims have come forward. Traditionally, defense contractors and
telecommunications companies have been popular targets with state-backed cyber
spies, Rid said.
Intelligence agents generally seek the latest on weapons technologies and
missile defense systems — anything vital to national security. They also develop
dossiers on rival government employees, potentially for recruitment as spies.
President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, cut short an
overseas trip to hold meetings on the hack and was to convene a top-level
interagency meeting later this week, the White House said in a statement.
O’Brien had been scheduled to return Saturday and had to scrap plans to visit
officials in Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Britain, said an official familiar
with his itinerary who was not authorized to discuss it and spoke on condition
of anonymity.
Earlier, the White House said a coordinating team had been created to respond,
including the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence.
At a briefing for congressional staffers Monday, DHS did not say how many
agencies were hacked, a reflection of how little the Trump administration has
been sharing with Congress on the case.
Critics have long complained that the Trump administration failed to address
snowballing cybersecurity threats — including from ransomware attacks that have
hobbled state and local governments, hospitals and even grammar schools.
“It’s been a frustrating time, the last four years. I mean, nothing has happened
seriously at all in cybersecurity,” said Brandon Valeriano, a Marine Corps
University scholar and adviser to the Cyber Solarium Commission, which was
created by Congress to fortify the nation’s cyber defenses. “It’s tough to find
anything that we moved forward on at all.”
Trump eliminated two key government positions: White House cybersecurity
coordinator and State Department cybersecurity policy chief.
Full Coverage: Hacking
Valeriano said one of the few bright spots was the work of Chris Krebs, the head
of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, whom Trump fired for
defending the integrity of the election in the face of Trump’s false claims of
widespread fraud.
Hackers infiltrated government agencies by piggybacking malicious code on
commercial network management software from SolarWinds, a Texas company,
beginning in March.
The campaign was discovered by the cybersecurity company FireEye when it
detected it had been hacked — it disclosed the breach Dec. 8 — and alerted the
FBI and other federal agencies. FireEye executive Charles Carmakal said it was
aware of “dozens of incredibly high-value targets” infiltrated by the hackers
and was helping “a number of organizations respond to their intrusions.” He
would not name any, and said he expected many more to learn in coming days that
they, too, were compromised.
Carmakal said the hackers would have activated remote-access back doors only on
targets sure to have prized data. It is manual, demanding work, and moving
networks around risks detection.
The SolarWinds campaign highlights the lack of mandatory minimum security rules
for commercial software used on federal computer networks. Zoom
videoconferencing software is another example. It was approved for use on
federal computer networks last year, yet security experts discovered various
vulnerabilities exploitable by hackers — after federal workers sent home by the
pandemic began using it.
Rep. Jim Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat and Cyberspace Solarium Commission
member, said the breach reminded him of the 2015 Chinese hack of the U.S. Office
of Personnel Management, in which the records of 22 million federal employees
and government job applicants were stolen.
It highlights the need, he said, for a national cyber director at the White
House, a position subject to Senate confirmation. Congress approved such a
position in a recently passed defense bill.
“In all of the different departments and agencies, cybersecurity is never going
to be their primary mission,” Langevin said.
Trump has threatened to veto the bill over objections to unrelated provisions.
—-
Associated Press writers Ben Fox, Deb Riechmann and Lolita Baldor in Washington
and Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.
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