US senator Warner –Cyberattack on US government may have started earlier than thought

The month of December 2020 saw the widespread hack of US government networks which impacted about 50 organizations. A US senator involved in cybersecurity believed that the hack may have started earlier than late spring.

Investigators for the US originally thought that the attack on government organizations and private industry began in March or April.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who serves as Vice-Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee in an interview said. “The initial burrowing may have started earlier.”

Warner said extensive investigations of the hack were active but that so far the US government does not have hard evidence that classified government secrets were compromised by the hackers.

He continued by saying, gaps in the US and international law make it difficult to track and crack down on large-scale hacks and that the United States and its allies must act to tighten controls.

“We still don’t have for the private sector, or for that matter, the public sector, any mandatory reporting,” Warner added that. “The amount of time it’s taking to assess the (latest) attack, it's taking longer than we would like to take.”

Warner said the lack of US laws and policy to counter such major hacks is the product of a “lack of policy that precedes the administration of President Donald Trump.” During the administration of President Barack Obama, people in both government and private sector “pushed back ferociously” at talk of stepping up cyberspace legal controls.

The latest hack that took place in mid-December, hit both US government and private systems by tampering with updates released by Texas-based software company SolarWinds, which serves government customers across the executive branch, the military, and the intelligence services.

Mike Pompeo Secretary of State and US government sources have said Russia is the major suspect in the attack, Trump himself has questioned their responsibility and suggested China might be behind the attack.

“There has been a reluctance out of this White House to call out Russia repeatedly,” Warner said. “I don’t believe that is a problem of the intelligence community. I think that is a problem of the White House.”