CISA and the SolarWinds Attack: What Do We Know?

American Thinker ^ | 14 Jan, 2021 | Julio Rivera

[MtnClimber]

On November 17, President Trump appointed Brandon Wales as the Director for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Wales was a highly qualified choice as he had been CISA's first Executive Director and previously served as the Director of the DHS Office of Cyber and Infrastructure Analysis (OCIA), which provides analysis of cyber and physical risks to America’s critical infrastructure.

Perhaps the most pressing cybersecurity issue for America and CISA currently is the fallout from the SolarWinds hacking attack that has affected at least 2000 computer systems belonging to over 100 governmental and non-governmental agencies across the world. News of the attack was first reported a few weeks after Wales took over CISA.

The attacks have been attributed to APT29 (Advanced Persistent Threat). The Russian hacking group is known by several aliases including Cozy Duke, Cozy Bear, the Dukes, and Office Monkeys. The hackers used a new malware strain known as SUNBURST in the attack.

Wales told the website cyberscoop last week that, “The number [of federal victims] is likely to grow with further investigation.”

Wales’s predecessor, Christopher Krebs was fired from his position as Director for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) just as President Trump began his legal challenge to the 2020 Presidential Election results. Krebs’s firing followed a November 12 Joint statement released on CISA’s website from 2 groups known as the Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committee. They claimed that “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double-checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result.”

[MtnClimber]

This smells like deep state coordination with tech companies and hackers.