When we talk about hacking & attribution, it's important to understand that tier 1 cyber nations (USA, China, Russia, & select Euros) can make it appear as if another country is responsible for select actions. Attribution is very difficult. Rapid confidence is a giant red flag.

The process of dissecting a sophisticated cyber attack that was potentially executed by a nation state takes significant time. Finger pointing by politicians and bureaucrats during this process is not only unwise, it gives off the scent of a political agenda in play.

You should never, ever trust "the intel" & take it to the bank. Learn the lessons from the 21st century. "The intel" is not sufficient. Show your work or shut your mouth. Even gov't officials who u consider "good guys" are sometimes advancing info they received from bad sources.

The timing surrounding the hack & all of the timely U.S.-centric political elements (NDAA debate, CISA defying POTUS), makes me hesitant to conclude this was a definitive work of a foreign regime. Time will tell, but yelling Russia Russia Russia does not convince me of anything.

TLDR: Hack can have "the marks" of a country. Now u need to figure out if those marks are authentic or a smokescreen. All of our sophisticated allies + China & prob even Iran can falsify RU attribution. Process takes a while to uncover. Be wary of those who jump to conclusions.

See how insane and dangerous this shit is? Remember the names of the people who are saying stuff like this. It's safe to disregard them as a serious person. https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1340340371839172610?s=20

When we talk about politcs & hacking, recall that we still have no evidence Russia hacked the DNC. And we know DNC+Podesta lost info due to a very simplistic phishing attack. However, the court of public opinion has ruled otherwise. Perhaps that's the goal this time around, too.

Also, I'm not terribly convinced that SolarWinds hack was as big an op as hyped. Cracking servers required finding out their password was "solarwinds123." Not joking. Similar to Podesta "hack" (his password was the word password), this stuff doesn't need big resources to pul off.

In the cybersecurity world, having such shit infosec measures means ur toast. What they did is the equivalent of living on a busy street with your door unlocked & a million dollars of visible cash in the window. Was the intrusion wrong? Sure. At the same time, it was inevitable.

Whatever actor/s is responsible for the hack did not commit some kind of act of war. They took advantage of an easy score. SolarWinds network has apparently been easily accessible for YEARS. These media narratives are bogus on multiple fronts, from attribution to perspective.