AP sources: SolarWinds hack got emails of top DHS officials

Suspected Russian hackers gained access to email accounts belonging to the Trump administration’s head of the Department of Homeland Security and members of the department’s cybersecurity staff whose jobs included hunting threats from foreign countries, The Associated Press has learned. Energy Department spokesman Kevin Liao said it “has found no evidence the network that maintains senior officials’ schedules was compromised.” The new disclosures provide a fuller picture of what kind of data was taken in the SolarWinds hack. DHS spokesperson Sarah Peck said that “a small number of employees’ accounts were targeted in the breach” and that the agency “no longer sees indicators of compromise on our networks.” The Biden administration has pledged to issue an executive order soon to address “significant gaps in modernization and in technology of cybersecurity across the federal government.” But the list of obstacles facing the federal government is long: highly capable foreign hackers backed by governments that aren’t afraid of U.S. reprisals, outdated technology, a shortage of trained cybersecurity professionals and a complex leadership and oversight structure. Eric Goldstein, the agency’s executive assistant director for cybersecurity, told Congress that Einstein’s technology was designed a decade ago and has “grown somewhat stale.” Anthony Ferrante, a former director for cyber incident response at the U.S. National Security Council and current senior managing director at FTI Consulting, said part of the problem, both in government and in the private sector, is the lack of a skilled workforce. Responsibility for responding to breaches, preventing new ones and providing oversight of those efforts is still unsettled, and last month leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee initially criticized the Biden administration for a “disorganized response” to the SolarWinds hack before the White House issued a statement clarifying its leadership structure.