Microsoft President: SolarWinds hack biggest ever

February 15, 2021 KT1 US 0

Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith delivers a speech during the 2017 Web Summit in Lisbon on November 8, 2017. - Europe's largest tech event Web Summit is being held at Parque das Nacoes in Lisbon from November 6 to November 9. (Photo by PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA / AFP) (Photo by PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP via Getty Images)

Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith delivered a speech during the 2017 Web Summit in Lisbon on November 8, 2017. (Photo by PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP via Getty Images)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 2:30 PM PT – Monday, February 15, 2021

Microsoft’s president said the SolarWinds hack was the largest the world has ever seen. In an interview on Sunday, Brad Smith said the malicious operation required over 1,000 engineers.

The hackers reportedly breached SolarWinds software, giving them access to various companies and government offices. The U.S. government said Russian criminals are the likely culprits and added the hack intended to collect data, rather than destroy it.

FILE - This Aug. 4, 2009, file photo shows the United States Chamber of Commerce building in Washington. The White House says a senior national security official is leading the U.S. response to a massive breach of government departments and private corporations discovered late last year. The announcement that the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emergency technology, Anne Neuberger, has been in charge of the response to the SolarWinds hack follows congressional criticism of the government effort so far as “disorganized.” (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

FILE – This Aug. 4, 2009, file photo shows the United States Chamber of Commerce building in Washington. The White House said a senior national security official is leading the U.S. response to a massive breach of government departments and private corporations discovered late last year. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File.)

Smith said malware was installed through a companywide update.

“I think from a software engineering perspective, I think it’s fair to say this is the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen,” Smith stated. “When that update went out to 18,000 organizations around the world, so did this malware.”

Cybersecurity experts are trying to determine the full extent of the attack and said it will be difficult to completely remove the infiltrators from the system.