Live data from Hacker News

SolarWinds hack was 'largest and most sophisticated attack' ever: MSFT president

reuters.com

1–10 of 294 posts

Re: SolarWinds hack was 'largest and most sophisticated attack' ever: MSFT president

#2
I thought they got access through an update sever with a weak password?

Was the attack otherwise sophisticated and just relied on an easy entry point? So the breaking in was easy, but the plan to steal once inside was sophisticated?

Re: SolarWinds hack was 'largest and most sophisticated attack' ever: MSFT president

#3

I thought they got access through an update sever with a weak password? Was the attack otherwise sophisticated and just relied on an easy entry point? So the breaking in was easy, but the plan to steal once inside was sophisticated?

Maybe do just a few minutes of research before first posting on a thread about state sponsored cyber crime.

The actual "hack" was a supply chain hijack, the actors inserted malicious dll code through a solarwinds authorized developer workstation, thus ensuring the code would be signed, and then pushed as a legitimate update to the downstream implementations of solarwinds.

Re: SolarWinds hack was 'largest and most sophisticated attack' ever: MSFT president

#5

I thought they got access through an update sever with a weak password? Was the attack otherwise sophisticated and just relied on an easy entry point? So the breaking in was easy, but the plan to steal once inside was sophisticated?

·

Re: SolarWinds hack was 'largest and most sophisticated attack' ever: MSFT president

#6
Largest impact, sure. But architecturally it was a relatively simple formula - compromise a widely used package and sleep on it until it was pervasive enough to be a valuable hack. I disagree with this being the most sophisticated though. Unless I'm missing something about this hack, the Stuxnet[1] architecture, complexity, and long term planning feel far more sophisticated than the SolarWinds hack.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

Re: SolarWinds hack was 'largest and most sophisticated attack' ever: MSFT president

#8
post #7
post #4

Convince me it’s more sophisticated than Stuxnet.

Agreed. It's amazing how they managed to infect air gapped computers. How do you even test something like that before the actual attack.

Compromise an employee.

Re: SolarWinds hack was 'largest and most sophisticated attack' ever: MSFT president

#9
post #6

Largest impact, sure. But architecturally it was a relatively simple formula - compromise a widely used package and sleep on it until it was pervasive enough to be a valuable hack. I disagree with this being the most sophisticated though. Unless I'm missing something about this hack, the Stuxnet[1] architecture, complexity, and long term planning feel far more sophisticated than the SolarWinds hack. [1] https://en.wi…

I guess they mean latest hack we have been the target of? Stuxnet was custom written malware targeting Iran, so yes I would agree with you but perhaps what he was trying to say is still true.

Re: SolarWinds hack was 'largest and most sophisticated attack' ever: MSFT president

#10

I thought they got access through an update sever with a weak password? Was the attack otherwise sophisticated and just relied on an easy entry point? So the breaking in was easy, but the plan to steal once inside was sophisticated?

The whole weak password thing was simply a funnily timed thing some guy found. It had absolutely nothing to do with the malicious update, which was the source of this supply chain attack. For some reason a bunch of people online decided that two things happening around the same time means they are related. They are not
Post reply on HN