By Justin Katz
Jan 07, 2021
The Justice Department confirmed its systems were hacked by suspected Russian intelligence agents that exploited a backdoor vulnerability in the SolarWinds Orion IT management software.
Attackers are believed to have accessed around 3% of email inboxes, but not any classified systems, according to DOJ spokesman Marc Raimondi.
DOJ s confirmation comes the day after the White House’s Cyber Unified Coordination Group first attributed the SolarWinds Orion hack to a Russian entity. The group also said it believes fewer than 10 federal agencies were victimized by hackers following the initial breach. As part of the ongoing technical analysis, the department has determined that the activity constitutes a major incident under the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, and is taking the steps consistent with that determination, Raimondi said.