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Naeem Arastu Joins Executive Leadership Team At Skyview Capital, LLC
Skyview Capital Bolsters M&A Team with Addition of Tenured Private Equity Professional
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Los Angeles based private investment firm Skyview Capital (www.skyviewcapital.com) announced today that Mr. Naeem Arastu has joined as a Managing Director of the M&A team. In his new role, Mr. Arastu will serve on the Investment Committee and work with Skyview’s Founder & CEO, Alex Soltani to help lead the firm’s global M&A initiatives and deepen the firm’s partnerships with institutional investors.
Mr. Arastu has over 15 years of highly successful private equity experience. He specializes in special situations private equity and distress for control investing with deep experience spanning a variety of industries including consumer, technology, business services, industrials and healthcare. He has served on more than 10 boards of portfolio companies during his tenure, providing strategic, financial and operational support to management teams. Most recently, Mr. Arastu served as Managing Director at Solace Capital Partners. Prior to that, Mr. Arastu served as Vice President at Oaktree Capital Management where he spent nine years in the private equity and distressed for control group. Before his private equity career, Mr. Arastu was with Credit Suisse in their investment banking division focused on leveraged finance.
“I am thrilled to welcome Naeem to our firm and excited to have him join our M&A team,” said Mr. Soltani. “Naeem is a proven leader that will bring his industry knowledge and experience to help Skyview drive growth in its existing portfolio, evaluate and execute new transactions, build out the M&A team and support fundraising efforts.”
Mr. Arastu stated, “the opportunity to join Skyview at this point in the firm’s evolution is truly exciting. The firm’s one team mindset, global perspective, and track record of finding and creating value in operationally complex situations is compelling. I am looking forward to working with Alex and the entire Skyview team to share and grow that value proposition for our investors.”
Mr. Arastu earned his MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School and B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
About Skyview Capital
Skyview Capital is a global private investment firm headquartered in Los Angeles specializing in the acquisition and management of mission critical enterprises in the areas of technology, telecommunications, business services and consumer products. By leveraging its deep operational resources and financial acumen, Skyview systematically enhances the long-term sustainable value of the businesses it acquires. To date, Skyview has successfully completed over 25 transactions whereby it has acted as a partner to corporations and other stakeholders experiencing a strategic transition or liquidity event. To learn more about Skyview, please visit www.skyviewcapital.com.For more information, contact:
Jeff White, Managing Director Business Development
jwhite@skyviewcapital.com
310-273-6000Read original article here: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/naeem-arastu-joins-executive-leadership-team-at-skyview-capital-llc-301410647.html?tc=eml_cleartime
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After ‘Shark Tank’ Rebuff, Healthy Chocolate Milk Startup Slate Closes $5 Million Seed Round
Read original Forbes article written by Douglas Yu here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/douglasyu/2021/10/04/after-shark-tank-rebuff-healthy-chocolate-milk-startup-slate-closes-5-million-seed-round/?sh=684b66c97fed
Boston-based startup Slate, cofounded by friends Manny Lubin and Josh Belinsky to create a healthier version of the classic chocolate milk, hit a rough patch shortly after it started. When the founding duo presented their early prototype on Shark Tank back in 2019, the judges were unimpressed:“Oh, I do not like that at all!” Mark Cuban was heard yelling after taking a sip. Fellow sharks Kevin O’Leary and Barbara Corcoran also called out the product’s “little funky chicken” element and “distinct dryness,” respectively, during their taste testing.
Those prototype products never made it to the shelves, according to Lubin. After spending a year on reformulation, Slate launched its first commercial product made with 17g protein, nine grams of added sugar and 130 calories per can, and sweetened with a combination of cane sugar and monk fruit.
With Slate growing 300% in sales from 2020 to 2021, more than 60% of which came from e-commerce, Lubin confirms the unenthusiastic feedback from Shark Tank earlier hasn’t really stopped new consumers from trying their lactose-free, ultra-filtered milk product, and the market demand will likely remain strong.
“There are tons of chocolate milk lovers out there,” Lubin said, “and people looking for better protein shake or latte options. So many consumers wanted to try themselves.”
To fuel that continued growth momentum, Slate has just closed $3.3 million, an extended seed round following its earlier $1.7 million fundraise in late 2020, putting the company’s total funding to around $6 million to-date.
This round is led by a group of reputable CPG entrepreneurs and investment groups, including Peter Rahal, founder of RXBar; Halo Top’s cofounder Doug Bouton; Yasso Frozen Greek Yogurt’s cofounders Drew Harrington and Amanda Klane; MVMT Watches’ cofounder Jake Kassan; Nick Rellas, cofounder of Drizly; as well as Skyview Capital and Riverpark Ventures. OneRepublic’s lead singer Ryan Tedder and entertainment company JDS Sports also contributed to the round.
Most of these investors, Lubin believes, have been in similar situations when building their businesses and can effectively help Slate expand retail and online footprints. “We feel as though our taste profile and nutritional makeup for 20g protein, zero added sugar and no artificial ingredients is really what sets us apart,” he said.
Slate, which sources dairy from family-owned farms in New York, is currently available in three different varieties: classic chocolate and dark chocolate milk, in addition to an espresso chocolate milk boosted with 150mg of caffeine per can. The newly raised capital will support the launch of its two new flavors in 2022 and continued retail and e-commerce expansion.
These ongoing developments are expected to drive Slate’ revenue increase by 200-300% next year, according to Lubin, who notes retail will account for the majority of the company’s sales by 2021 – around 70% with nearly 4,000 locations under major banners, including Publix, Wegmans, Market Basket, Ahold and Whole Foods WFM 0.0%.
“Along with this, we do everything we can to be a sustainable brand: our products are packaged in 100% recyclable aluminum cans, and we’re actually a certified plastic-neutral brand through partner rePurpose Global. This means, for every pound of plastic we use, we remove it from the planet,” he added. “When we ultra-filter our milk, we also remove some of the water naturally in milk, which gets sent back to our partner farms. The only outside water we use is to clean our machinery.”
Despite the growing hype around dairy alternatives, a category that will grow at an estimated 23% CAGR between 2020 and 2027 to reach at least $5.1 billion in the U.S., according to PitchBook data, Lubin said Slate is not in a rush to jump on the bandwagon.
“We look at other ready-to-drink protein shakes and chocolate milk as other options for our customers,” he stressed. “I think it’s great to see all the innovation in the dairy-free space, but we’ve found that many consumers either still prefer the taste of real milk, or have a combination of real milk and dairy-free options in their diet. We don’t think they necessarily have to be mutually exclusive.”
Commenting on what lessons can be taken for budding entrepreneurs, Lubin said there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to building an emerging consumer brand, but noted how important it is to “surround yourself with people that you can learn from, and hire folks you genuinely enjoy working with.”
“As for Shark Tank,” he added, “we had to learn from it and move on, just like ever other aspect of the business. Every time we see the episode, we can see how far we’ve come, but we’re also reminded we still have a heck of a long way to go.”
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ams Osram has sold Digital Lumens, Inc. to Private Equity Firm, Skyview Capital
Read original inside.lighting, LLC article here: https://inside.lighting/news/21-09/ams-osram-sells-digital-controls-brands-pe-firm
We discuss the acquisition with Brian Bernstein, CEO, Digital Lumens, Inc. and Ross Ely, Senior Vice President of Portfolio Operations at Skyview Capital.
Los Angeles private equity firm, Skyview Capital, has purchased Digital Lumens, Inc. from ams Osram. The transaction involves the North American lighting and controls brands Digital Lumens and Encelium. In 2011, Osram fully acquired NJ-based Encelium. In 2017, Osram acquired Boston-based Digital Lumens.
In recent years Osram has undergone major shifts in its business, selling off major pieces of its lighting portfolio while becoming part of ams, a global supplier of high-performance sensor solutions.
The transaction closed on Monday September 20. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Our multiple requests for comment to ams Osram were not returned.
Topics we explore:
- Why did Skyview capital buy Digital Lumens & Encelium? (0:58)
- What changes might Digital Lumens and Encelium customers, agents and other stakeholders see going forward? (1:46)
- How will Skyview Capital bring more value to Digital Lumens and Encelium? (3:05)
- How do you keep the company focused amidst all of the speculation and changes? (4:28)
Below is the announcement from Skyview Capital:
Skyview Capital has Acquired Digital Lumens and Encelium Business Units to Accelerate Investment in Growth, Innovation, and Market Adoption
LOS ANGELES – Skyview Capital, a global private investment firm, announced that it has acquired the Digital Lumens and Encelium businesses from Osram Licht AG. Terms were not disclosed.
Digital Lumens and Encelium’s advanced Lighting Controls solutions provide leading-edge software and hardware to improve and automate the lighting of commercial and industrial facilities. Skyview Capital has formalized the new company, Digital Lumens, Inc., and will invest in this entity to accelerate the growth, innovation, adoption, and support of these solutions.
Digital Lumens has emerged as a leader in the Intelligent Lighting, Advanced Lighting Controls, Smart Devices, and Facility Insights space, selling to hundreds of blue-chip customers globally across multiple industrial verticals, including Manufacturing, Warehousing, Food Processing, and Transportation. Digital Lumens’ lighting and SiteWorx software solutions have helped customers improve workplace productivity, safety, and environmental sustainability by metering utilities, monitoring their entire facility, and observing critical areas.
For over 20 years, Encelium’s advanced network lighting controls solutions have been transforming healthcare centers, office buildings, educational institutions, and commercial properties with advanced light management systems. Encelium X, its latest and most advanced system, is simple to install and intuitive to use, helping customers make significant leaps in comfort, control, code compliance, and energy efficiency. More information can be found for both brands at www.digitallumensinc.com.
“We are excited to partner with Digital Lumens, Inc. to serve the IoT and Connected lighting markets. We are looking forward to helping the team expand and enhance the business in all ways,” said Alex Soltani, Chairman and CEO of Skyview Capital.
“We now are very well-positioned to grow the Digital Lumens and Encelium business lines. We have innovative software and hardware technology and now the financial backing to help realize our global strategy. There is a significant opportunity to expand our services to new customers and geographies,” said Brian Bernstein, CEO of Digital Lumens.
About Skyview Capital, LLC
Skyview Capital, LLC is a global private investment firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California, which specializes in the acquisition and management of mission-critical enterprises in the areas of technology, telecommunications, business services, niche manufacturing, and food & beverage. By leveraging its operational capabilities and financial acumen, Skyview systematically enhances the long-term sustainable value of the businesses it acquires. The Los Angeles Business Journal recently recognized Skyview as one of the top 30 private equity firms in Los Angeles. To date, Skyview has successfully completed over 30 transactions within its target market verticals. For further information, please visit www.skyviewcapital.com.
About Digital Lumens, Inc.
Digital Lumens, Inc is comprised of two business units: 1) Digital Lumens, which serves the industrial segment, and 2) Encelium, which serves the commercial sector.
Digital Lumens helps thousands of industrial facilities around the world operate at peak performance today — and be ready for the future. The innovations start with intelligent LED luminaires and advanced lighting controls, which provide great lighting and energy savings. The SiteWorx facility insights application suite and an array of smart devices help industrial customers know more and do more by metering utilities, monitoring their entire facility, and observing critical areas. These popular solutions deliver significant results and exceptional value right out of the box. And Digital Lumens continually explores and innovates, looking for breakthroughs that make facilities more efficient and sustainable — while keeping people safe and productive.
Encelium has been transforming healthcare centers, office buildings, educational institutions, and commercial properties with advanced light management systems for over 20 years. Encelium X, its latest and most advanced system, is simple to install and intuitive to use, helping customers make major leaps in comfort, control, and energy efficiency. Encelium light management systems make life better and brighter for tenants and occupants while enhancing the experience of lighting designers, electricians, building owners, managers, and many others. Sophisticated capabilities made simple — that’s the Encelium Experience. Digital Lumens, Inc is based in Boston, MA, and is a portfolio company of Skyview Capital LLC. More information can be found at www.digitallumensinc.com
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Skyview Capital Acquires OSRAM’s Digital Lumens and Encelium Lighting Solutions Business
Skyview Capital has Acquired Digital Lumens and Encelium Business Units to Accelerate Investment in Growth, Innovation, and Market Adoption
Read Digital Journal article here: https://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/skyview-capital-acquires-osrams-digital-lumens-and-encelium-lighting-solutions-business
LOS ANGELES, CA, September 24, 2021 /24-7PressRelease/ — Skyview Capital, a global private investment firm, announced that it has acquired the Digital Lumens and Encelium businesses from Osram Licht AG. Terms were not disclosed.
Digital Lumens and Encelium’s advanced Lighting Controls solutions provide leading-edge software and hardware to improve and automate the lighting of commercial and industrial facilities. Skyview Capital has formalized the new company, Digital Lumens, Inc., and will invest in this entity to accelerate the growth, innovation, adoption, and support of these solutions.
Digital Lumens has emerged as a leader in the Intelligent Lighting, Advanced Lighting Controls, Smart Devices, and Facility Insights space, selling to hundreds of blue-chip customers globally across multiple industrial verticals, including Manufacturing, Warehousing, Food Processing, and Transportation. Digital Lumens’ lighting and SiteWorx software solutions have helped customers improve workplace productivity, safety, and environmental sustainability by metering utilities, monitoring their entire facility, and observing critical areas.
For over 20 years, Encelium advanced network lighting controls solutions have been transforming healthcare centers, office buildings, educational institutions, and commercial properties with advanced light management systems. Encelium X, its latest and most advanced system, is simple to install and intuitive to use, helping customers make significant leaps in comfort, control, code compliance, and energy efficiency. More information can be found for both brands at www.digitallumensinc.com.
“We are excited to partner with Digital Lumens, Inc. to serve the IoT and Connected lighting markets. We are looking forward to helping the team expand and enhance the business in all ways,” said Alex Soltani, Chairman and CEO of Skyview Capital.
“We now are very well-positioned to grow the Digital Lumens and Encelium business lines. We have innovative software and hardware technology and now the financial backing to help realize our global strategy. There is a significant opportunity to expand our services to new customers and geographies,” said Brian Bernstein, CEO of Digital Lumens.
About Skyview Capital, LLC
Skyview Capital, LLC is a global private investment firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California, which specializes in the acquisition and management of mission-critical enterprises in the areas of technology, telecommunications, business services, niche manufacturing, and food & beverage. By leveraging its operational capabilities and financial acumen, Skyview systematically enhances the long-term sustainable value of the businesses it acquires. The Los Angeles Business Journal recently recognized Skyview as one of the top 30 private equity firms in Los Angeles. To date, Skyview has successfully completed over 30 transactions within its target market verticals. For further information, please visit www.skyviewcapital.com.About Digital Lumens, Inc.
Digital Lumens, Inc. is comprised of two business units: 1) Digital Lumens which serves the industrial segment, and 2) Encelium which serves the commercial sector.Digital Lumens helps thousands of industrial facilities around the world operate at peak performance today — and be ready for the future. The innovations start with intelligent LED luminaires and advanced lighting controls, which provide great lighting and energy savings. The SiteWorx facility insights application suite and an array of smart devices help industrial customers know more and do more by metering utilities, monitoring their entire facility, and observing critical areas. These popular solutions deliver significant results and exceptional value right out of the box. And Digital Lumens continually explores and innovates, looking for breakthroughs that make facilities more efficient and sustainable — while keeping people safe and productive.
Encelium has been transforming healthcare centers, office buildings, educational institutions, and commercial properties with advanced light management systems for over 20 years. Encelium lighting control systems make life better and brighter for tenants and occupants while enhancing the experience of lighting designers, electricians, building owners, managers, and many others. Sophisticated capabilities made simple — that’s the Encelium Experience. Digital Lumens, Inc. is based in Boston, MA and is a portfolio company of Skyview Capital LLC. More information can be found at www.digitallumensinc.com
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Fidelis Cybersecurity Wins “Best Product in XDR” in the Global InfoSec Awards during 2021 RSA Conference
Fidelis Elevate Named Best Product in XDR (eXtended Detection and Response) in the 9th Annual Global InfoSec Awards at #RSAC 2021
Fidelis Cybersecurity, the industry innovator in active eXtended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions trusted by Fortune 100 firms and governments worldwide, was today named “Best Product in XDR – eXtended Detection and Response” by Cyber Defense Magazine (CDM), the industry’s leading electronic information security magazine.
Fidelis Elevate is an open, extensible platform that has been purpose-built for Active Defense. It enables SOC analysts to engage adversaries earlier in the attack lifecycle, reshape the attack surface and take control of enterprise security to proactively stop threats before they impact business. Fidelis Elevate unifies deception technologies with detection and response across endpoint (EDR), network (NDR) and cloud. This combination allows an organization to detect and trace an attacker’s movement, understand what systems they have compromised, stop their advance, and restore impacted system to normal operations as quickly as possible. The company recently acquired CloudPassage, a pioneer in cloud security and compliance, which will expand its XDR capabilities within the cloud.
“It’s truly an honor that Fidelis Elevate has been recognized by Cyber Defense Magazine as the best XDR product,” said Fidelis Cybersecurity CISO, Chris Kubic. “It’s a crowded marketplace, and this recognition speaks volumes to the innovation and talent across the Fidelis team. Our team has been working hard to advance Fidelis’ mission of delivering innovative, unified solutions that help organizations worldwide detect, respond and neutralize advanced threats.”
“We scoured the globe looking for cybersecurity innovators that could make a huge difference and potentially help turn the tide against the exponential growth in cyber crime. Fidelis Cybersecurity is absolutely worthy of this coveted award and consideration for deployment in your environment,” said Gary S. Miliefsky, Publisher of Cyber Defense Magazine.
Winners of this year’s Infosec Awards are announced at a virtual award ceremony at the #RSAC Conference 2021. To attend the awards, please visit https://www.rsaconference.com/usa for more information.
About Fidelis Cybersecurity
Fidelis Cybersecurity combats the full spectrum of cyber-crime, data theft and espionage. A leading provider of threat detection, hunting and response solutions, Fidelis provides full visibility across hybrid environments, automates threat and data theft detection, empowers threat hunting, and optimizes incident response with context, speed and accuracy. Fidelis is trusted by Global 1000s and Governments as their last line of defense.
The Fidelis Elevate™ platform captures rich metadata from across the threat landscape and combines that content to enable real-time and retrospective analysis, giving security teams the platform to effectively hunt for threats in their environment.
For more information go to www.fidelissecurity.com. Fidelis Cybersecurity is a portfolio company of Skyview Capital.
About CDM InfoSec Awards
This is Cyber Defense Magazine’s ninth year of honoring global InfoSec innovators. Our submission requirements are for any startup, early stage, later stage or public companies in the INFORMATION SECURITY (INFOSEC) space who believe they have a unique and compelling value proposition for their product or service. Learn more at www.cyberdefenseawards.com.
About the Judging
The judges are CISSP, FMDHS, CEH, certified security professionals who voted based on their independent review of the company submitted materials on the website of each submission including but not limited to data sheets, white papers, product literature and other market variables. CDM has a flexible philosophy to find more innovative players with new and unique technologies, than the one with the most customers or money in the bank. CDM is always asking “What’s Next?” so we are looking for Next Generation InfoSec Solutions.
About Cyber Defense Magazine
With over 5 Million monthly readers and growing, and thousands of pages of searchable online infosec content, Cyber Defense Magazine is the premier source of IT Security information for B2B and B2G with our sister magazine Cyber Security Magazine for B2C. We are managed and published by and for ethical, honest, passionate information security professionals. Our mission is to share cutting-edge knowledge, real-world stories and awards on the best ideas, products and services in the information technology industry. We deliver electronic magazines every month online for free, and special editions exclusively for the RSA Conferences. CDM is a proud member of the Cyber Defense Media Group. Learn more about us at https://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com and visit https://www.cyberdefensetv.comand https://www.cyberdefenseradio.com to see and hear some of the most informative interviews of many of these winning company executives. Join a webinar at https://www.cyberdefensewebinars.com and realize that infosec knowledge is power.
Read original article here: https://fidelissecurity.com/newsroom/best-xdr-product-infosec-award/
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Fidelis Buys CloudPassage To Better Monitor Cloud Assets
Fidelis was impressed by CloudPassage’s ability to collect telemetry from different parts of the enterprise and deliver cloud security posture management and cloud workload protection from a single platform.
Read original article by Michael Novinson here:
https://www.crn.com/news/security/fidelis-buys-cloudpassage-to-better-monitor-cloud-assets?itc=refresh
May 13, 2021 – Fidelis Cybersecurity has purchased cloud security vendor CloudPassage to broaden the company’s reach around detecting and responding to threats.
The Bethesda, Md.-based extended detection and response (XDR) vendor was impressed by San Francisco-based CloudPassage’s ability to collect telemetry from different parts of the enterprise and deliver cloud security posture management and cloud workload protection from a single platform, according to Fidelis President and CEO Anup Ghosh (pictured).
“They’re a very good fit for our customer segment, and we think they’ve built the right platform,” Ghosh told CRN exclusively.
Terms of the deal, which closed late Wednesday, weren’t disclosed. CloudPassage was founded in 2009 and employs more than 70 people, all of whom will be joining Fidelis, the company said. CloudPassage Founder and CEO Carson Sweet will become Fidelis’ chief cloud security officer, where Ghosh said he’ll continue to run CloudPassage and serve as the company’s chief spokesperson for cloud security.
The CloudPassage acquisition will fill the missing link in Fidelis’ XDR strategy, Ghosh said, providing visibility into cloud workloads to complement the company’s existing capabilities around network security, endpoint security and deception technology. Fidelis plans to spend the next year creating an integrated offering that marries capabilities from both companies to deliver comprehensive protection.
CloudPassage’s technology makes it possible for customers to discover cloud assets they didn’t even know they had and get reports on exposure associated with those assets, Ghosh said. Once businesses understand their exposure, Ghosh said it’s all about remediation, and customers can take advantage of the synergies between Fidelis’ endpoint technology and CloudPassage’s cloud workload monitoring.
Specifically, Ghosh said CloudPassage provides customers with a front-end interface showing their assets, exposure and paths to remediation across Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. CloudPassage can also be integrated into the software development life cycle to ensure that SaaS applications developed in the cloud comply with regulations, according to Ghosh.
Ghosh said he’s most interested in bringing CloudPassage’s capabilities to the Global 2000, which Fidelis classifies as large enterprises and which makes up the core of the company’s customer base. CloudPassage also initially focused on large enterprises, but in recent years had shifted its focus downmarket to SMBs. Ghosh said he’s looking to reverse this trend and bring CloudPassage back to the enterprise.
CloudPassage has sold some to MSSPs and MDR providers who manage cloud security on behalf of their SMB customers, Ghosh said. But historically, Ghosh said CloudPassage hasn’t had much of a channel focus, with the company’s inside sales team calling customers directly.
Conversely, Ghosh said Fidelis has gotten out of the incident response and managed detection and response spaces so that the company can hand those services-based engagements to channel partners. Fidelis’ channel community includes global systems integrators, regional partners, resellers and MDR providers, according to Ghosh.
Fidelis’ channel partners will have immediate access to CloudPassage’s technology as well as associated training materials, Ghosh said. The company’s internal sales staff will get cross-trained on how to demo CloudPassage’s technology as well as the problems it solves, and Ghosh said that training will be rolled out to channel partners.
From a metrics standpoint, Ghosh said Fidelis is most focused on retaining CloudPassage’s employee base and growing the company’s wallet share inside existing CloudPassage customers. Fidelis also plans to monitor the number of net-new customers the combined company acquires going to market together.
“This is a new day for Fidelis,” Ghosh said. “This is a real opportunity to see Fidelis as an organization that can see across the entire enterprise: endpoint, network and cloud.”
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Massive hack of US government launches search for answers as Russia named top suspectREAD MORE
CNN — Days after several US agencies confirmed their networks were compromised in a massive data breach, federal officials are still struggling to understand the scope of the damage — highlighting the sophistication and breadth of an ongoing hacking campaign that has been tied to Russia.
House and Senate Intelligence Committee aides received a phone briefing on the hack from administration officials on Wednesday, but the full extent of the breach remains unclear, according to sources familiar with the briefing. The Biden transition team was also briefed on the attack this week, an official from the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber arm told CNN. The official declined to provide additional details about what was discussed.While relevant agencies continue to investigate the incident, the cybersecurity firm FireEye disclosed Wednesday that the malicious software contains a “killswitch” that can be used to shut it down. But even after deactivating the malware, there is a chance that affected systems may remain accessible to the attackers, a FireEye spokesperson said.At the same time, US officials are already facing mounting pressure to retaliate against Russia, even as they scramble to address the vulnerabilities that were exploited and to formally identify the perpetrator.‘A feeling of dread’
Even as officials continue to grapple with the immediate fallout from the attack, its seriousness is already coming into view, as are the glaring shortcomings of American cyber defenses that were exposed.News of the intrusions comes at a highly sensitive time, in the middle of a presidential transition. President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team has been meeting with the various agencies as it prepares to take over. On Monday, his staff was briefed by officials on the massive intrusion, an official from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said.Biden himself would also presumably have been given details in his daily classified briefing.US officials and cybersecurity experts are warning that the incident should serve as a wake-up call for both the federal government, including the incoming Biden administration, and private sector companies, as foreign actors will undoubtedly conduct similar attacks and improve their tactics in the future.In the short term, the effort to catalog which agencies were hit and what information may have been accessed or stolen has shaken the nation’s intelligence agencies, according to one former Trump administration official, who added that the fallout has led to more than a little finger pointing.“There is a feeling of widespread dread in the national security community,” the former official said.President Donald Trump has yet to acknowledge the hack despite the rapidly growing list of agencies in his administration that were affected, though the National Security Council and White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany have commented on the breach. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked about the intrusion on Monday and acknowledged it was consistent Russian efforts to breach servers belonging to American government agencies and businesses, but would not give any additional details.The FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement on Wednesday night confirming they became aware “over the course of the past several days” of “a significant and ongoing Cybersecurity campaign” targeting US government agencies through SolarWinds software.In the statement, the agencies also said they were coordinating “a whole-of-government response to this significant cyber incident” and noted that “this compromise has affected networks within the federal government.”The FBI is “gathering intelligence in order to attribute, pursue, and disrupt the responsible threat actors,” while the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is “engaging with our public and private stakeholders across the critical infrastructure community to ensure they understand their exposure,” and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is “helping to marshal all of the Intelligence Community’s relevant resources to support this effort and share information across the United States Government,” according to the statement.CNN has previously reported that the systems belonging to at least three agencies — the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce and Homeland Security — were compromised by a vulnerability found in a third-party software vendor’s network management tool. The Washington Post reported the Treasury Department was also affected. Other national security agencies, including the Department of Defense, are currently investigating whether their networks may have been affected.“It’s knowable, but it takes a fair amount of forensic work” to know the full extent of the intrusions, former National Security Agency general counsel Glenn Gerstell said. “It’s going to take a long time.”“The problem is that until we know exactly what they did and what they had access to, you can’t do something other than metaphorically unplug the system,” Gerstell added. “That’s a big problem, that’s not a mitigation, you don’t apply a patch and it’s fixed.”Uncertainty
That uncertainty only raises the stakes of what is already the most significant government breach in years.“The United States faces untold numbers of cyber threats from malicious foreign actors, both to the government agencies and private industry, and sometimes both at the same time,” the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, said in a statement Wednesday after his panel was briefed on the attack by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency and the FBI.“The seriousness and duration of this attack demonstrate that we still have enormous and urgent work to do to defend our critical information and networks, that we must move quicker than our adversaries do to adapt,” he added.The intrusions are believed to have begun in the spring, according to forensic analysis by FireEye, which also disclosed its own breach linked to the vulnerability earlier this month.CNN previously reported that a Russian-linked group, known as APT29, was behind the FireEye hack.Many of the investigations will try to determine what the hackers did with the information they were able to stealthily access for months. So far, the operation, which bears all the hallmarks of a Russian-backed actor, appears to be a wide ranging espionage campaign intended to compromise as many key public and private sector networks as possible, several cybersecurity experts told CNN.The US government’s ability to carry out its investigation is uneven and may vary by agency, said Chris Kubic, chief information security officer at Fidelis Cybersecurity and a former top cybersecurity official at the National Security Agency.“If they don’t have the right tools in place, if they aren’t collecting the application logs, the system logs that allow them to do the analysis, it can be difficult for them to determine what was exposed,” Kubic said.The sophistication of the almost yearlong spying operation has revealed weaknesses and gaps in a system called Einstein that DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency uses to protect federal agencies.Congress is going to want to know “why it’s not working as advertised” after allocating billions of dollars for the system, a former senior DHS official told CNN. The system is based on finding known malicious activity, the former official said, but if you “don’t know what you are looking for it’s a problem.”Einstein wasn’t set up to detect the way the actors got in, through a backdoor in software updates, said Gerstell, the senior former NSA official.“CISA is only a few years old, it’s under-resourced, it has deficiencies in its authorities,” Gerstell said. “It takes years to build the depth of expertise you need to do the job across the government. This is a multiyear effort, and the bad guys have had years of a head start. I think in some areas the gap is widening rather than closing.”The agency is also lacking Senate-confirmed leadership. Chris Krebs was fired last month after he said the November election was the most secure in American history.“The workforce will do the best that they can, but that is not a replacement for experience and confirmed leadership. Without Senate-confirmed leadership an agency doesn’t have an ability to get a lot of attention at the White House and get the support that they need to have a whole-of-government response,” said Carrie Cordero, senior fellow and general counsel at the Center for a New American Security and a CNN legal and national security analyst.A Pentagon spokesperson said Wednesday that the forensic review of department networks continues but that there is currently nothing definitive to share.Vice Adm. Nancy Norton, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, issued a statement later Wednesday saying: “We are aware of the wide-spread and evolving cyber incident. We continue to assess our DOD Information Networks for indicators of compromise and take targeted actions to protect our systems beyond the defensive measures we employ each day. To date, we have no evidence of compromise of the Defense Information Systems Agency.”Meanwhile, the intelligence community “continues to share information with US government agencies what they have learned about the attack” and is “marshaling all of its relevant resources to support this effort and share information across the United States Government,” a spokesperson from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told CNN on Wednesday.Still, the full impact of the breach may never be known, experts tell CNN, pointing to the fact that even if the hackers accessed only unclassified data, such as email addresses, that information can be used to engineer sophisticated phishing campaigns that would likely be impossible to trace back to the current incident.“One of the big concerns, particularly on the US government side, is that the first thing the attackers went for were email systems,” according to Oren Falkowitz, a former NSA official who’s the CEO of the cybersecurity firm Area 1.Email is the largest business application in the world and a significant amount of valuable data can be extracted from the inboxes of government and private-sector employees, he told CNN.Compromised emails could easily provide a foreign government an edge in diplomatic negotiations or other sensitive dealings, said Kubic.Additionally, having access to email servers can help attackers, who often want to launch additional phishing campaigns, Falkowitz added. “Once you get access into the email servers, you can masquerade or pretend to be a legitimate user, and now your attacks can be even more sophisticated.”Hackers target ‘soft underbelly’ of US national security
The malware that enabled the hack was also found in thousands of organizations in the private sector, complicating the analysis. It isn’t clear whether the attackers specifically targeted any companies for intrusion. But according to FireEye, many companies in the tech, telecom, consulting and energy sectors were vulnerable because they had installed the legitimate software updates in which the hackers’ malicious code was hiding.That has touched off a scramble at major companies to try to determine if they were hit by the spying campaign, too. On Wednesday, Comcast told CNN it has embarked on an assessment of its systems based on data breach disclosures by the software company at the center of the crisis, SolarWinds.“As soon as we learned of the SolarWinds incident on Sunday, we quickly activated a series of internal security protocols to mitigate any potential impact,” Comcast told CNN in a statement. “We are conducting a thorough internal review, but at this time, we have no reason to believe that any Comcast data or customer data was compromised in connection with the use of SolarWinds products.”Hundreds of other private-sector firms, including many in the Fortune 1000, also had their networks compromised in these hacks, according to Cedric Leighton, a former NSA official and a CNN military analyst who runs his own cybersecurity and defense consulting firm.And that number is likely far higher, as the breach may affect not only direct customers of Solar Winds but those customers’ own clients as well, Jennifer Bisceglie, CEO of Interos, a supply chain risk-management firm, told CNN. “The supply chain is proving out to be the soft underbelly of the global economy. And so we have a lot of customers asking us where SolarWinds is in our extended supply chain.”This story has been updated with a joint statement from the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
