The United States’ famous FireEye Cybersecurity firms’ security tools have been compromised in a state-sponsored attack, the firm revealed. The ‘Red Team’ tools were targeted and accessed by the hackers which the firm uses to check customer security and probe vulnerabilities.
The cause for concern is in regards to the hackers’ usage of these tools with experts worrying that they might release the information publicly or use it to personally attack individuals though FireEye assures that no client information was shared.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Russia might be a suspect though FireEye has declined to release the name of the country but reveals that it the nation that attacked the USA has “top-tier offensive capabilities.”
FireEye has assured that they are investigating the matter thoroughly along with the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and industry partner Microsoft. “This attack is different from the tens of thousands of incidents we have responded to throughout the years,” CEO Kevin Mandia wrote in his FireEye blog post, noting that the attackers “are highly trained in operational security and executed with discipline and focus.” The blog however failed to disclose the time at which the hack took and the time when it was caught by FireEye employees.
The disclosure of this incident however has caused its’ shares to drop around 7 percent in after-hours trading but nevertheless the firm was praised for its timely reporting of the intrusion.
In response to the attack, FireEye has developed over 300 countermeasures to assure its customers of the safety of its cybersecurity tools and also shared them with “colleagues in the security community,” and is making them publicly available. FireEye intends develop more countermeasures and release them to the public as soon as possible.
