WASHINGTON —
The massive hack of government networks that came to light this month is “probably the most consequential cyber-espionage campaign in history,” an industry expert warns.
“I have never seen anything on this scale, for this long period of time, running undetected and penetrating so many high-profile victims,” explained Dmitri Alperovitch, former chief technical officer of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. It was a “spectacularly successful operation.”
The extensive security breach
affected the federal Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security departments, among others. The hackers — believed by many experts to be Russian — piggybacked on software updates pushed out by the company SolarWinds, although the nation’s top cybersecurity agency believes other access points may have also been used.