US intel agencies blame Russia for massive SolarWinds hack

A coalition of top intelligence agencies on Tuesday formally announced that Russia was behind the recently discovered hack of IT company SolarWinds that compromised much of the federal government and thousands of other groups.

The FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a joint statement that based on their initial investigation “an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor, likely Russian in origin, is responsible for most or all of the recently discovered, ongoing cyber compromises of both government and non-governmental networks.”

The statement was the first time the federal government has officially pinned the blame for the incident on Russia, though officials including President-elect Joe Biden, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former Attorney General William Barr have said publicly they believe Moscow was responsible.

President Trump, by contrast, has suggested China may have been involved.