The location of the burglary itself may also have played a role. Investigators are investigating whether the hack violated SolarWinds offices in Eastern European countries such as Belarus, the Czech Republic and Poland. Engineers there had wide access to the Orion networking software affected by the hack, and Russia would be more familiar with the region.
The Times also claims that SolarWinds was slow to address security; he carried out security in 2017 in response to EU privacy legislation and reportedly ignored adviser Ian Thorton-Trump’s calls for “more proactive” internal guarantees. Thorton-Trump left the company in frustration over the response to his concerns.
SolarWinds declined to comment on questions about its security, reiterating that it was the target of a ‘highly sophisticated, complex and targeted cyber attack’.
The full extent of the damage is not certain, although it is already clear that the culprits gained access to Microsoft source code and attacked the security firm CrowdStrike in addition to federal agencies and other victims. It can take months or longer before it is clear how the hood occurred and, more importantly, what damage was done.