The Untold Story of the Boldest Supply-Chain Hack Ever
See, that&#x27;s a long article I would have just skipped a year ago. Now, we get to play with its content and it&#x27;s fun :<p>Joe: So, it was late 2019 when we stumbled upon the breach at the think tank.<p>Donald: And what did you find, Joe?<p>Joe: Another digital security breach, nothing special. But then we found a second group of hackers, more skilled, going after specific executives, policy wonks, and IT staff.<p>Donald: Damn, that&#x27;s some precision targeting right there.<p>Joe: Yeah, we kicked them out, but they kept coming back. We found out they had planted a backdoor three years earlier, and we never even knew.<p>Donald: Three years?! They were playing the long game, huh?<p>Joe: You could say that. And in June 2020, they came back. We spent days trying to figure out how they slipped in.<p>Donald: And how did they do it?<p>Joe: They zeroed in on a server running SolarWinds software. And that&#x27;s when the Department of Justice called us.<p>Donald: Those hackers were clever.<p>Joe: You&#x27;re damn right they were. They had gained access to the firm’s multifactor authentication system and were conducting counterintelligence against one of their biggest foes.<p>Donald: Who was that?<p>Joe: Mandiant.<p>Donald: And did Mandiant catch them?<p>Joe: Yeah, they did. But here&#x27;s the thing, Don. Mandiant had investigated an intrusion on a server running the same SolarWinds software months earlier.<p>Donald: No way.<p>Joe: Yeah, way. And they didn&#x27;t recognize the similarity between the two cases.<p>Donald: Why not?<p>Joe: Internal secrecy, man. And SolarWinds was the source of the hack.<p>Donald: That&#x27;s what caused all the anger, huh?<p>Joe: You got it. And the US government won&#x27;t say what the hackers did inside its networks. People are saying they don&#x27;t want to admit their failures.