ICBPS- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday said Russia was “prety clearly” behind a massive cyberattack executed earlier this week that breached several U.S. government agencies, roughly 80 percent of the affected customers are located in the United State.
Mike Pompeo has expressed Russia is behind the massive SolarWinds cyberattack that targeted several US government agencies earlier this year, according to Business Insider.
The Silicon Valley-based Microsoft reported late Thursday that it had notified more than 40 customers hit by the malware, which security experts declare could allow attackers unfettered network access to key government systems, and electric power grids, and other utilities.
“There was a significant effort to use a piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside of US government systems,” Pompeo told The Mark Levin Show on Friday.
“This was a very significant effort, and I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity.”
Roughly 80 percent of the affected customers are located in the United States, Microsoft president Brad Smith said in a blog post, with victims also found in Belgium, Britain, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates, I24 News reported.
Pompeo had also suggested Moscow’s involvement on Monday, saying the Russian government had made repeated attempts to breach US government networks.
Cybersecurity experts say it could take some of those organizations years to figure out the extent of the U.S. cyberattack and what data, if any, was actually stolen.
President Donald Trump has not yet commented on the attack.
An office within the Department of Energy, which manages nuclear weapons, was also targeted although officials said that the arsenal’s security had not been compromised.
The massive national security breach, which targeted software made by firm SolarWinds, was discovered last week but had been going on for months.
SolarWinds said that at least 18,000 of its customers downloaded the software update containing the malicious code that enabled the hackers to infiltrate internal systems.
Among those who were targeted were cybersecurity company FireEye, tech giant Microsoft, the Pentagon, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Speaking on the “Mark Levin Show”, Pompeo said there was “a significant effort to use a piece of third-party software to essentially embed code inside US government systems,” according to the BBC.
“We can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity,” Pompeo said, NBC reported. “I can’t say much more as we’re still unpacking precisely what it is, and I’m sure some of it will remain classified.”