A government in all likelihood has hacked into FireEye, one of the biggest cybersecurity firms in the U.S., and stolen some hacking tools that test its client’s defenses. This is one of the most important breaches in present times as FireEye is a company that has a lot of contracts in the space of national security in the U.S. and the country’s allies. FireEye’s shares decreased by 8% after the hack was reported.
The breach was disclosed via a public filing by citing Kevin Mandia, CEO. The company blog posted that the tools of the red team were stolen which is a part of the likely highly sophisticated hacking operation backed by a government that was using techniques previously unseen.
It is still not clear when this hack took place, although it was reported that FireEye was resetting their user passwords for the last two weeks. In addition to tool theft, the subset of the company’s customers mainly government agencies also interested the hackers.
Opinions Of Experts On FireEye’s Hacking
Adam Schiff, Chairman, Committee of House Intelligence has asked appropriate intelligence agencies to brief them about the attack, the vulnerabilities that could result from it, and also the actions necessary for mitigating the impacts. No clear evidence suggests that the company’s hacking tools were used or theft of client data occurred. But the Microsoft Corp and the FBI will help look into it.
Matt Gorham, assistant director, Cyber Division, FBI indicated that investigations reveal a person with high levels of sophistication that is consistent with that of a nation-state. A former official of the Defense Department said that the country Russia was at the top of their suspect’s list.
Russian interference was previously seen in the elections of the U.S. According to Paul Ferguson, exploitation tools at the hands of the wrong person can lead to victimization of those who are not at fault. Whenever companies get to know about vulnerabilities they fix them with a patch but many users don’t seem to install these patches for months.
