White House Press, national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks to reporters. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
TO Newsroom
UPDATED 13:20 PT – Saturday 13 March 2021
White House officials evaded questions from the press about the recent Microsoft Exchange hack. Ahead of his forthcoming face-to-face meeting with Chinese officials, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan faced the press corps.
Reporters on Thursday wasted no time in establishing the administration’s position on the latest scandal related to China.
In early March, Microsoft warned users that their e-mail server, Exchange, had been compromised, allowing hackers to install malware to facilitate long-term access to a number of systems. In an effort to stop the attacks, the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center analyzed the group’s victim, tactics, and procedures.
With a high degree of confidence, Microsoft attributed the attacks to a group they called Hafnium, a so-called “state-sponsored threat actor” working out of China. However, Sullivan claims that the White House was not so sure, although the manufacturer of the targeted system confirmed that he knows who their attacker is.
“I’m not in a position to attribute this today, but I promise you we’ll be able to attribute the attack at some point in the near future,” Sullivan said. ‘And we will not hide the ball on it. We will come forward and say who we believe carried out the attack. ”
Just days after the initial announcement, Microsoft even reported that the attacks were continuing. Sullivan misunderstood.
“It’s still going on in the sense that we’re still gathering information,” he claimed. We are still trying to determine scope and scope. This is important. ”
Indeed, current estimates show that more than 60,000 organizations have been compromised. In addition, security teams worked with Microsoft to reveal that the number of burglary attempts tripled every two to three hours.
A senior official told CNN that the “window for updating exposed servers” was measured in hours, not days.
Despite the urgency, Sullivan claims at the end of the day, it’s every server for himself.
“Ultimately, a lot of this comes down to the private sector taking the steps they need to take to recover,” Sullivan said.