{"id":22049,"date":"2021-02-23T17:16:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T17:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2021\/02\/23\/after-solarwinds-us-needs-to-toughen-cyber-defenses-says-microsoft-president\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:34:19","slug":"after-solarwinds-us-needs-to-toughen-cyber-defenses-says-microsoft-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/cyber\/2021\/02\/23\/after-solarwinds-us-needs-to-toughen-cyber-defenses-says-microsoft-president\/","title":{"rendered":"After SolarWinds, US needs to toughen cyber defenses, says Microsoft president"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2015 In the wake of a sweeping hack<\/a> that may have revealed government and corporate secrets to Moscow, the U.S. must strengthen its cyber defenses and prepare a \u201crobust menu\u201d of responses to attacks, Microsoft Corp. President Brad Smith said Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breach, which hijacked widely used software from Texas-based SolarWinds Inc., has exposed the profound vulnerability of civilian government networks and the limitations of efforts to detect threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. must draw a lesson about danger cyberattacks pose to American civilians from the recent severe weather power grid collapse in Texas and a hacker\u2019s botched attempt to poison the water supply of a small Florida city, Smith told the Senate Armed Services Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThink about the danger to American civilians if there is a disruption of the water supply, and then think about a future where a nation need not send missiles or planes but can simply send code to do its fighting for it,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to strengthen the nation\u2019s digital infrastructure and digital defenses, and that touches every part of the public sector, and every part of the private sector as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond modernizing dated information technology infrastructure, Smith suggested Congress address gaps in intelligence sharing between private companies and the government, and in the government\u2019s intelligence gathering. For example, the National Security Agency\u2019s authority allows it only to look outside U.S. borders, when it appears the SolarWinds hack used data centers of private firms inside the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government, Smith said, should default to \u201ca culture of a need to share,\u201d though with privacy controls and divisions between the public and private sectors, using AI-assisted data aggregation.<\/p>\n\n\n\t