Microsoft Corp. was breached as part of the massive hacking that used a backdoor of SolarWinds software, as part of what the president of the tech giant called “effectively an attack on the United States.”
Reuters reported Thursday that after infiltrating Microsoft, hackers used their products to attack other people.
While Microsoft MSFT,
officials confirmed the violation, denied that their products were used to encourage piracy.
“Like other SolarWinds customers, we have been actively looking for indicators of this player and we can confirm that we have detected malicious SolarWinds binaries in our environment, which we have isolated and removed,” the Microsoft spokesman said. Frank Shaw said on Twitter. “We have not found evidence of access to production services or customer data. Our research, which is ongoing, has found absolutely no evidence that our systems were used to attack other people.
In a blog post on Thursday, Microsoft President Brad Smith said, “This latest cyber attack is indeed an attack on the United States,” and called the hacking “a moment of reckoning.”
The hacking, which was first reported Sunday, may be the most widespread and damaging thing the United States has ever affected. The Security and Cybersecurity Agency said Thursday that the “critical infrastructure” had been breached and that the risk to government and private networks was “grave.”
Approximately 18,000 companies, including the vast majority of S&P 500 SPX,
U.S. companies and government agencies, such as Treasury and Commerce, were victims of malware. SolarWinds SWI,
said Thursday that it has already fixed the software vulnerability. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that hackers were extraordinarily stealthy and used unprecedented hacking tools. The government and companies are still figuring out how much information has been compromised.
Smith said Microsoft’s cybersecurity team agrees with FireEye FEYE’s findings,
CEO Kevin Mandia, who said there is likely to be a nation-state behind the attack. Russia is the main suspect.
“Unfortunately, the attack represents a broad and successful assault based on espionage against U.S. government confidential information and the technological tools companies use to protect them,” Smith said.
Smith warned that the attack is “ongoing” and said at least seven other countries had been affected, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Israel and the United Arab Emirates. “It is certain that the number and location of the victims will continue to grow,” he said.
“This is not ‘espionage as always,’ even in the digital age,” Smith said. “Instead, it represents an act of recklessness that created a serious technological vulnerability for the United States and the world. In reality, it is not just an attack on specific targets, but the confidence and reliability of the world’s critical infrastructure.
He called for a strong and coordinated global response to cyberattacks, both in the public and private sectors, as well as for holding nations accountable for cyberattacks.
“We live in a more dangerous world and it requires a stronger, coordinated response,” Smith wrote.