The U.S. Failed to Execute Its Cyberstrategy—and Russia Pounced

By Rob Knake

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Last month, the cybersecurity firm FireEye alerted the U.S. government that hackers had breached its defenses and accessed the networks of its clients, which include numerous U.S. federal agencies and major corporations. Since then, U.S. investigators have unearthed evidence of an enormous, months-long foreign hacking campaign that gained access to the networks of at least 18,000 companies and government entities through a weak link in their supply chains: a piece of management software produced by the Texas-based company SolarWinds. Analysts are still investigating the exact source of the hack, but all evidence points to the Russian external intelligence agency known as the SVR.

Russia appears to have easily evaded U.S. cyberdefenses. At least six U.S. federal agencies failed to detect the malicious activity on their networks. Among them were the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, and the Department of State. The Department of Homeland