SolarWinds Cyberattack: Best Practices for Developing Effective Incident Response Strategies


In December 2020, FireEye Cybersecurity Firm informed SolarWinds of a malicious trojan detected in an already distributed Orion software update that affected numerous customers and partner organizations. The following year the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released a response on mitigating the remote supply chain attack, and NSA, CISA, and the FBI identified the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service as the attacker (U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2021). This case not only highlights a need for a detailed, effective incident response plan but it acknowledges the importance of a federal response to protecting sensitive data from foreign attack. An effective incident response plan could have significantly reduced the effect of the attack over time. By segmenting the network, alerting and resetting user account credentials, and responding to detailed logging reports, SolarWinds could have significantly reduced the effect of the attack (Lee et al., 2021).


Reference:

Lee, R. D., Mancusi, M. A., Hay, A. A., & Raglani, A. (2021, June 11). Lessons Learned from the SolarWinds Cyberattack, and the Future for the New York Department of Financial Services’ Cybersecurity Regulation. Arnold&Porter. https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/advisories/2021/06/lessons-learned-from-the-solarwinds-cyberattack

U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2021, April 22). SolarWinds Cyberattack Demands Significant Federal and Private-Sector Response (infographic). https://www.gao.gov/blog/solarwinds-cyberattack-demands-significant-federal-and-private-sector-response-infographic

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