Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, told CNN that the country will "respond" to the devastating SolarWinds hack in the coming weeks. Specifically, in his statement he said the following:
“We are currently working, together with the intelligence community and President Joe Biden, on a series of steps to respond to the SolarWinds hack. Among those steps is determining and announcing who we believe is responsible for this, and you will hear from them soon. We are not talking months from now, but weeks from now, that the United States will be ready to take the first steps in response to SolarWinds.”
Last week, White House cybersecurity officials announced that the investigation into the SolarWinds hack could take several months, if not longer.
Sullivan said the Biden administration is working to pin the hack on a specific threat actor and respond appropriately to the criminal act. Sullivan also noted that soon after taking office, Biden tasked the intelligence community with assessing the scope and scale of the attack , and asked the intelligence community to provide him with evidence that would reveal who was behind it. Sullivan added that while the Trump administration has blamed Russia for the hack , the US needs to come up with something more specific and substantive.
A particularly important point in Sullivan's statement is that the US government's response to the SolarWinds hack will not be limited to sanctions . The US government is working to strengthen its defenses to prevent a similar attack in the future. Finally, Sullivan emphasized that efforts are currently underway to remediate the hack and ensure that the threat actor is removed from federal government systems
