SolarWinds Hires Chris Krebs and Alex Stamos for Breach Recovery

SolarWinds, the company targeted in a major cyberattack affecting US government agencies and private organizations, has hired Chris Krebs and Alex Stamos to recover from the incident and improve its overall security posture. 

Krebs is a former US security official who previously led the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) until he was fired by President Trump following efforts to ensure the security of the 2020 election. Stamos, former security chief for Facebook, is now a Stanford professor and director of the Stanford Internet Observatory. 

The two have formed a consulting business that will help SolarWinds respond to a security incident widely considered one of the most severe attacks to target the United States in recent years. Attackers who infiltrated SolarWinds sent backdoored versions of its software to some 18,000 customers, including federal agencies and companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, and Intel. 

SolarWinds had already hired CrowdStrike to help assess the attack and improve its security, Reuters reports. Now it's bringing in the two experts as part of larger efforts to strengthen its security strategy, which had been criticized in the past. 

"We have brought in the expertise of Chris Krebs and Alex Stamos to assist in this review and provide best-in-class guidance on our journey to evolve into an industry leading secure software development company," a SolarWinds spokesperson said in a statement. 

Read more details here.