In some ways, SolarWinds is a misnomer for the campaign. The Russians hacked other companies’ software to gain access to victims’ networks. They compromised the email security firm Mimecast as well as a Microsoft corporate partner that handles cloud-access services. And they broke into two federal agencies using “brute force” password cracking, or algorithms that guess passwords, officials said.

The SVR hacked the State Department, the White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff unclassified networks in 2014 and 2015. But that operation was “noisier,” using phishing emails that were easier to detect, said Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator and a cyber­security expert who investigated the earlier hacks.

Silverado Policy Accelerator:
1716 Sumerian
1196 Satanic

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