Russian hackers’ motive for SolarWinds cyberattack baffles US: mere espionage, or worse?
- Researchers from Silicon Valley to Washington are racing to understand the full impact of the massive cyberattack that breached computer networks across the US
- Some say the magnitude and breadth of the hack point to objectives beyond espionage, including undermining Americans’ faith in the systems themselves
Already, investigators and government officials have pointed to an elite group of hackers tied to the Russian government and suggested a fairly obvious rationale: that it was an espionage operation aimed at nabbing classified intelligence and other inside information.
But some lawmakers and people involved in the investigations have said that the magnitude and breadth of the hack point to other objectives, including undermining Americans’ faith in the systems themselves.
They’re clearly attacking the confidence that we as a society have in those systems
US cybersecurity officials have warned that the attackers pose a “grave risk” to federal, state and local government agencies, in addition to the private sector and critical infrastructure, which could include anything from the electrical grid to transport networks.
Some have even likened the attack to an act of war, raising the stakes in how the US might respond.
Chris Inglis, former deputy director of the US National Security Agency, said the attack extended beyond typical cyber-espionage because the attackers dispersed their malicious code so widely, even to potential targets with no obvious intelligence value.
“They’ve blown out the possibility that this is a simply an intelligence operation,” he said. “They’re clearly attacking the confidence that we as a society have in those systems.”
