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US government caught blindsided over sophisticated cyber hack, experts say

Russia has long been viewed as a threat in cyberspace. But after one of the most successful cyber intrusion campaigns in U.S. history, questions are being raised over how the federal government was so completely blindsided by an attack many experts have seen coming.

The successful hacking of multiple federal agencies and tens of thousands of individual federal and private entities — widely presumed to be a Russian intrusion and which federal officials warn is ongoing — managed to subvert sophisticated protections by targeting third-party software contractor SolarWinds.

“We shouldn’t have been surprised, the Russians are very sophisticated, they are very dedicated and relentless, and this appeared to be a soft target they were able to exploit,” Christopher Painter, the former State Department cybersecurity coordinator under both the Trump and Obama administrations, told The Hill on Friday.  Continue reading.

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