SolarWinds adviser warned of lax security years before hack

BUSINESS / Tech

SolarWinds adviser warned of lax security years before hack

Last week, SolarWinds found itself at the center of the largest cybersecurity attack in recent memory. Suspected Russian hackers breached the internal networks of at least 200 customers, including U.S. government agencies. | REUTERS

By Ryan Gallagher
Bloomberg

Dec 22, 2020

A former security adviser at the IT monitoring and network management company SolarWinds Corp. said he warned management of cybersecurity risks and laid out a plan to improve it that was ultimately ignored.

In a 23-page PowerPoint presentation reviewed by Bloomberg News, Ian Thornton-Trump recommended to company executives in 2017 that SolarWinds appoint a senior director of cybersecurity, and said he told them that “the survival of the company depends on an internal commitment to security.”

The following month, he terminated his relationship with the company, saying he believed its leadership wasn’t interested in making changes that would have “meaningful impact.”