US says Russians tied to SolarWinds cyberattack hacked federal prosecutors

The Justice Department said 80 per cent of Microsoft email accounts used by employees in the four attorney offices in New York were breached

It said all victims had been notified and it is working to mitigate ‘operational, security and privacy risks’ caused by the hack

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The SolarWinds campaign infiltrated dozens of private sector companies and at least nine US government agencies. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 10:44pm, 31 Jul 2021Updated: 10:44pm, 31 Jul 2021

The Russian hackers behind the massive SolarWinds cyber espionage campaign broke into the email accounts of some of the most prominent federal prosecutors’ offices around the US last year, the Justice Department said.

The department said 80 per cent of Microsoft email accounts used by employees in the four US attorney offices in New York were breached. All told, the Justice Department said 27 US attorney offices had at least one employee’s email account compromised during the hacking campaign.

The Justice Department said in a statement on Friday that it believes the accounts were compromised from May 7 to December 27, 2020. Such a time frame is notable because the SolarWinds campaign, which infiltrated dozens of private sector companies and think tanks as well as at least nine US government agencies, was first discovered and publicised in mid-December.

The Biden administration in April announced sanctions, including the expulsion of Russian diplomats, in response to the SolarWinds hack and Russian interference in the 2020 US presidential election. Moscow has denied wrongdoing.

Jennifer Rodgers, a lecturer at Columbia Law School, said office emails frequently contained all sorts of sensitive information, including case strategy discussions and names of confidential informants, when she was a federal prosecutor in New York.

“I don’t remember ever having someone bring me a document instead of emailing it to me because of security concerns,” she said, noting exceptions for classified materials.