SolarWinds brings in a former federal cybersecurity chief as a consultant
As the fallout of the SolarWinds hack rumbles on, the embattled company has hired a security consultancy co-founded by Christopher Krebs, a former federal cybersecurity chief. Krebs led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a division of Homeland Security, until President Donald Trump fired him in November. He oversaw efforts to protect the 2020 presidential election from hackers.
News broke last night that I’m jumping into the next chapter of my career alongside @alexstamos. We’ve teamed up to form https://t.co/pystaH2Ug9. Our concept is simple: help businesses manage cybersecurity risk as business risk, making the Internet a safer place in the meantime.
— Chris Krebs (@C_C_Krebs) January 8, 2021
It emerged this week that Krebs has founded Krebs Stamos Group, a cybersecurity consulting business, along with former Facebook and Yahoo security chief Alex Stamos. “We have already engaged in helping understand and recover from what looks to be one of the most serious foreign intrusion campaigns in history, and we will be helping others learn from this attack,” Stamos wrote on Twitter alongside the announcement of his new enterprise.
Sudhakar Ramakrishna, who took over as SolarWinds CEO this week, wrote in a blog post that the company has brought in several cybersecurity experts to help the team immediately improve “critical business and product development systems, with the goal of making SolarWinds an enterprise software industry security leader.” On its website, Krebs Stamos Group states that it works with clients to “help them understand the threats they face, the weaknesses in their posture, and the role they play in the security of our wider society.”
Hackers reportedly used a vulnerability in IT management software sold by SolarWinds to access systems belonging to many public and private sector organizations, including federal agencies. US intelligence agencies have suggested Russia was behind the attack and officials believe more than 18,000 SolarWinds clients may have been affected. Meanwhile, it emerged that sealed US court records may have been compromised in the breach.
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