Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, SVR, has been officially blamed for the cyberattack on SolarWinds by the Biden administration. Sanctions against a number of IT security firms that helped enable the attack and other malicious cyber activities have been implemented. Positive Technologies and other smaller IT security firms were placed on the US Treasury Department sanctions list. 

The NSA, CISA and FBI issued a joint advisory warning of the SVR targeting network and communications technologies that are widely deployed on US networks. This is the first time the US government formally named the Russian intelligence agency as the perpetrator. The attacks had created concern about large-scale cyber espionage and data theft. The sanctions identified the SVR, Federal Security Service, and Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate responsible for the multiple cyberattacks, including SolarWinds.

Read more: US Formally Attributes SolarWinds Attack to Russian Intelligence Agency