Cleaning up SolarWinds hack may cost as much as $100 billion

Government agencies, private corporations will spend months and billions of dollars to root out the Russian malicious code

American businesses and government agencies could be spending upward of $100 billion over many months to contain and fix the damage from the Russian hack against the SolarWinds software used by so many Fortune 500 companies and U.S. government departments.

“Unlike good wine, this case continues to get worse with age,” said Frank Cilluffo, director of Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security. “For a lot of folks, the more they dig, the worse the picture looks.” 

Not only were at least four government departments targeted by the Kremlin hack — Commerce, Treasury, Homeland Security and Justice — but also thousands of top global corporations who were customers of SolarWinds, Cilluffo said. While government agencies appeared to be primary targets, “it doesn’t mean the private sector isn’t affected as well,” he said.  Continue reading.