After Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the committee’s ranking member, called for the designation of a single official to lead the U.S. response to the Russia-backed hack of thousands of government and private-sector networks via SolarWinds Orion products, the White House confirmed to the senators that Deputy National Security Advisor Anne Neuberger is leading the effort. […]

As agencies are scrambling to recover and build up their cybersecurity from the Russia-backed hack of thousands of government and private-sector networks via SolarWinds Orion products, Federal agency leaders say it will not be easy. […]

The road to better cybersecurity for government and the private sector looks like a long, uphill climb, with no concept of a finish line. […]

Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the committee’s ranking member, are urging the Biden administration to “assign a clear leader” to lead the United States’ response to the Russia-backed hack of thousands of government and private-sector networks via SolarWinds Orion products. […]

Nine Democratic senators are pressing the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the U.S. Courts for a briefing and information about exactly what data was compromised by the SolarWinds hack in a letter to the departments. […]

President Biden is asking intelligence agencies for a “full assessment” of Russian involvement in breaches of thousands of government and private-sector networks via SolarWinds Orion products, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Jan. 21. […]

The costs and consequences of the Russia-backed hack of government and private sector networks via a breach of SolarWinds Orion products are continuing to grow more than a month after the exploit was publicly disclosed, a senior official with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said today. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) late Friday issued a new alert – stemming from the Russian hack of SolarWinds Orion products – in which CISA warns it has uncovered evidence of post-hack advanced persistent threat (APT) activity in the cloud environment. […]

In the midst of dealing with the fallout from the Russian cyberattack that used SolarWinds software to breach the networks of thousands of the firm’s customers, SolarWinds has hired former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Chris Krebs and his new cybersecurity consulting firm as an independent consultant. […]

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO) was breached by Russia-backed actors through the use of SolarWinds software, with “highly sensitive” documents – including sealed filings – put at risk, the organization said. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a new round of supplemental guidance on Jan. 6 to the emergency directive that the agency issued on Dec. 13, 2020, providing remediation guidance in response to the Russia-backed hack of more than 18,000 government and private sector systems via SolarWinds Orion products. […]

Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies said today they believe that “fewer than ten” Federal agencies have been targeted by “follow-on” activity after initial breaches in the Russia-directed hacking of government networks via SolarWinds Orion products. […]

With one of the most abnormal years of our lifetimes coming to an end, we look back at the top Fed IT moments of 2020. In a year with both a pandemic and an election, the government had to change the way it worked, ensure trust in election outcomes, and modernize on the fly. […]

A bill introduced on Dec. 11 by Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, would require Federal agencies to report to Congress within seven days about any cyber attacks they have faced that would cause significant harm to national security or agency operations. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned today that threats to government networks caused by previously reported breaches of SolarWinds Orion products pose a “grave risk” to Federal government, state, tribal and territorial governments, critical infrastructure entities, and other private-sector organizations. […]

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that most large agencies had not implemented any supply chain risk management practices from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) – publicly acknowledging weaknesses on the heels of the attack on SolarWinds’ software that led to breaches at multiple Federal agencies. […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is requiring all Federal civilian agencies to disconnect or turn off any SolarWinds Orion products by noon today, as a nation-state hack of the tools pose a significant cybersecurity threat and is linked to a hack at the Treasury and Commerce Departments. […]

There is a concerning lack of cyber confidence and organizational maturity across all levels of government, according to a survey released today by SolarWinds. The report, which surveyed IT operations and security decisionmakers from Federal, state, and local governments, found that the biggest IT pain points for the public sector are IT complexity, insider threats, and controlling user network access. […]

A survey released today by IT management software firm SolarWinds finds that Federal IT professionals view unintentional insider threat as the most significant source of security threats. […]

About half of government IT professionals think that regulations make it more difficult to achieve an optimal cybersecurity posture, according to a study released Sept. 18 by SolarWinds. […]

MeriTalk compiles a weekly roundup of contracts and other industry activity. Here’s what happened this week in the Federal Information Technology community. […]