Former SolarWinds adviser says he warned of lax security years before suspected Russian hack

  • Former SolarWinds security adviser Ian Thornton-Trump says he warned management of cybersecurity risks and laid out a plan to improve it in 2017 but was ignored
  • ‘My belief is that from a security perspective, SolarWinds was an incredibly easy target to hack,’ Thornton-Trump says

Texas-based SolarWinds is at the centre of the largest cybersecurity attack in recent memory. Photo: Reuters

A former security adviser at the IT monitoring and network management company SolarWinds said he warned management of cybersecurity risks and laid out a plan to improve it that was ultimately ignored.

In a 23-page PowerPoint presentation reviewed by Bloomberg News, Ian Thornton-Trump recommended to company executives in 2017 that SolarWinds appoint a senior director of cybersecurity, and said he told them that “the survival of the company depends on an internal commitment to security”.

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