Sophisticated hackers have turned the tables on FireEye, a single of the world’s premier cybersecurity corporations, stealing electronic equipment that it employs to examination its customers’ cyber defenses.
The New York Occasions stated the “stunning theft,” which FireEye disclosed on Tuesday, was “akin to bank robbers who, obtaining cleaned out local vaults, then turned about and stole the FBI’s investigative equipment.”
“The hack of a premier cybersecurity business demonstrates that even the most sophisticated providers are vulnerable to cyberattacks,” stated Sen. Mark Warner, the rating Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia stated in a blog site submit that the corporation thinks the attackers ended up sponsored by “a country with leading-tier offensive capabilities” and employed “a novel mixture of strategies not witnessed by us or our partners in the past” to accessibility “certain Purple Workforce evaluation equipment that we use to examination our customers’ protection.”
“Consistent with a country-point out cyber-espionage exertion, the attacker principally sought information and facts linked to specified authorities prospects,” he documented.
According to the Occasions, FireEye “has been the very first contact for authorities agencies and providers about the world who have been hacked by the most sophisticated attackers, or dread they may possibly be.”
The firm’s Purple Workforce equipment mimic the actions of a lot of cyber danger actors and permit FireEye to present diagnostic protection solutions to its prospects. The hack was the largest known theft of cybersecurity equipment considering that a team identified as ShadowBrokers attacked the Nationwide Protection Company in 2006.
Professionals stated the thieves could use the Purple Workforce equipment to disguise their very own tracks when they launch potential attacks. But Mandia stated FireEye experienced observed no proof to day that any attacker has employed them.
“We have realized and keep on to find out additional about our adversaries as a final result of this attack,” he stated.
Mike Chapple, a cybersecurity professional at the College of Notre Dame and a former Nationwide Protection Company official, identified as the FireEye breach “an terribly considerable attack.”
“As a single of the world’s go-to cybersecurity corporations, FireEye has a ringside seat for some of the most sophisticated breaches carried out all over the world,” he explained to CNN Organization.