US lawmakers briefed on the massive cybersecurity breach that has impacted government agencies and the private sector are cal
U.S. lawmakers briefed on the massive cybersecurity breach that has impacted government agencies and the private sector are calling for the country to act, warning that so far, all evidence is pointing to Russia as the culprit. The admonitions, from both Republicans and Democrats, follow warnings from U.S. cybersecurity officials that the scope of the hack is potentially much bigger than originally thought, encompassing multiple software platforms going back at least as far as March of this year. FILE – Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., asks a question during a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing in Washington, July 30, 2020. “The full extent of the cyberhack [sic] is still unknown but we already know it is unprecedented in scale & scope,” the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Marco Rubio, tweeted Friday. “The methods used to carry out the cyberhack are consistent with Russian cyber operations,” Rubio added, warning that once officials can attribute the intrusion with complete certainty, “America must retaliate, and not just with sanctions.” The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee likewise expressed alarm about the hack, describing the breach as devastating. FILE – Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., addresses the news media in Alexandria, Va., Nov.3,2020. “An incident of this magnitude and lasting impact requires an engaged and public response by the U.S. government,” Senator Mark Warner said in a statement issued Friday. “It is extremely troubling that the president does not appear to be acknowledging, much less acting upon, the gravity of this situation.” Indications of a cyber intrusion first went public earlier this month when the private cybersecurity firm FireEye announced its systems had been penetrated and that sensitive information had been stolen. The hack was later traced to updates for network management software from a Texas-based company called SolarWinds, which the hackers exploited to get into the networks of at least 18,000 users.
