WASHINGTON: The hackers who carried out the massive SolarWinds intrusion were in the software company’s system as early as January 2019, months earlier than previously known, the company’s top official said Wednesday.
SolarWinds had previously traced the origins of the hack to the fall of 2019 but now believes that hackers were doing “very early recon activities” as far back as the prior January, according to Sudhakar Ramakrishna, the company’s president and CEO.
“The tradecraft that the attackers used was extremely well done and extremely sophisticated, where they did everything possible to hide in plain sight, so to speak,” Ramakrishna said during a discussion hosted by the RSA Conference.
The SolarWinds hack, which was first reported last December and which US officials have linked to the Russian government, is one in a series of major breaches that has prompted a major cybersecurity focus from the Biden administration. By seeding the company’s widely used software update with malicious code, hackers were able to penetrate the networks of multiple US government agencies and private sector corporations in an apparent act of cyberespionage. The US imposed sanctions against Russia last month.
Also Wednesday, Ramakrishna apologized for the way the company blamed an intern earlier this year during congressional testimony for poor password security protocols. That public statement, he said, was “not appropriate.”
“I have long held a belief system and an attitude that you never flog failure. You want your employees, including interns, to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes and together we become better,” he added. “Obviously you don’t want to make the same mistake over and over again. You want to improve.”
Hackers targeted SolarWinds earlier than previously known
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Hackers targeted SolarWinds earlier than previously known
- By seeding the company’s widely used software update with malicious code, hackers were able to penetrate the networks of multiple US government agencies and private sector corporations in an apparent act of cyberespionage
Venezuela’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado has left Oslo
- “She is no longer in the city of Oslo,” Pedro Urruchurtu Noselli wrote on X
- Machado, who has lived in hiding in Venezuela since August 2024, arrived in Oslo last week
OSLO: Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, has left Oslo, a member of her entourage said on Wednesday without providing details of her whereabouts.
“She is no longer in the city of Oslo,” Pedro Urruchurtu Noselli wrote on X.
Machado, who has lived in hiding in Venezuela since August 2024, arrived in Oslo last week.
She was due to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in the Norwegian capital on Wednesday, but was delayed and did not make it in time.
According to a spokesperson, the 58-year-old opposition leader fractured a vertebra during her secret journey out of hiding in Venezuela to Norway.
She “is doing well and during these days she is attending medical appointments with a specialist as part of her prompt and full recovery,” Noselli said.
Machado has accused President Nicolas Maduro of stealing Venezuela’s July 2024 election, from which she was banned — a claim backed by much of the international community.
She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year for promoting democratic rights and “for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
