A score of prosecutors in the US affected by a cyberattack attributed to Russia

The email accounts of employees of more than twenty federal prosecutors in the US were compromised by the massive SolarWinds cyberattack, the Department of Justice (DOJ, in English) revealed on Friday. In a statement, the DOJ provided additional details of the SolarWinds intrusion. The cyberattack reportedly began in 2019 and penetrated the systems of the US government and large companies through a program of the SolarWinds company.

Information released today included a list of 27 district attorneys offices from 15 states in which hackers accessed one or more email accounts between May 7 and December 27, 2020. These include the district offices of California, Columbia, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.

Compromised data includes all sent, received and stored emails and attachments and attachments found within those accounts during that time, the note added.

The Justice Department indicated that, while other districts were affected to a lesser degree, the hacker group accessed the email accounts of at least 80% of employees at the offices of the eastern districts, north, south, and west of New York. On April 15, the United States imposed sanctions on Moscow for its alleged interference in the 2020 presidential elections and its alleged role in the massive SolarWinds cyber attack.

That day, the White House formally accused the Russian Foreign Espionage Service (SVR) of having perpetrated the massive cyberattack. For its part, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB, former KGB) dismissed the accusations against Moscow as unfounded and affirmed that Washington does not bother to share any data that speaks of involvement in the attacks of Russian citizens.