US President Joe Biden seems to have taken the SolarWinds cyber hack and the digital attack on Microsoft Exchange Server seriously, as the white house has hinted that the 47th president will be soon launching a task force to thwart cyber attacks from Adversaries.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have confirmed the news and have additionally urged all organizations using Microsoft Exchange to check for any vulnerability on their servers.
Security Researcher Brian Krebs, who disclosed the vulnerability to the world on March 5th, 2021 stated that hackers could have exploited around 30,000 companies in a hacking campaign launched almost 16 months ago.
FBI and the CIA was asked to investigate the incident to the core by the white house and in the meantime, Biden led administration has choose to address the issue with a special cyber task force that will not only thwart such attacks on National Infrastructure but will also be assigned with the authority to launch retaliation filled cyber attacks.
It is already clear that most of the intense digital attacks are being launched by adversary nations like China, Russia and North Korea. So, the focus will be on curbing such nations from launching espionage or malware related campaigns that not only disrupt the digital infrastructure but also pave way for economic and political crisis.
Microsoft issued a press statement early last week stating that there is no evidence that the actor behind SolarWinds was also involved in breaching the security of its Email Exchange Server. The Satya Nadela led company is in an opinion that a second attack of similar sort (one that was launched on Exchange Server) might be launched by China in near future.
The European Banking Authority which is a financial regulator of Europe has confirmed yesterday that its communication systems were deeply affected in the cyber incident. However, it also confirmed that no sensitive data was accessed by hackers as per its preliminary investigations.
Note- In what is known to our Cybersecurity Insiders, a team of 24 Cybersecurity specialists will be assigned with protecting the digital assets of the public and private entities nationwide. And these individuals hailing from different backgrounds such as military and technology will be provided with a team of specialists to assist them in their task of preserving the National Integrity.
