White House Names SolarWinds Response Leader Amid Criticism

After members of Congress criticised as “disorganised” the US response to a massive breach of government departments and private corporations discovered late last year, the White House announced Wednesday that a senior national security official had been leading the effort since the first day of the Biden administration.

Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emergency technology, was in charge of remediating the hack, identifying issues with the federal government's response and launching a study aimed at preventing similar incidents, the White House said.

Intelligence and law enforcement officials are still trying to piece together the cyberespionage campaign blamed on Russia that has badly shaken the US government and private sector. The hack, connected to tainted software from the US firm SolarWinds, was publicly revealed in December but believed to have begun more than a year earlier.

The intruders stealthily scooped up intelligence for months, carefully choosing targets from thousands of customers infected with malicious code they activated after sneaking it into an update of network management software first pushed out last March by Texas-based SolarWinds. The company makes popular software that monitors computer networks of businesses and governments.

So far, the list of agencies known to have been affected includes the Treasury, Commerce and Justice departments, along with several private companies including cyber-security firms. The Russian government has denied any role in the hack.

February 11, 2021