David G. Tech 12.21.2020 11:Dec AM EST

FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia Reveals Massive Cyberattack's Scope Is 'Worst' in US History, Calls to Create 'Doctrine'

FireEye Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kevin Mandia mentioned in an interview that the suspect behind a massive cyberattack has not yet been determined and added that the scope of the attack could have been the worst in US according to experts.

The CEO himself had an interview with American news company CBS News, with their show "Face the Nation." Mandia said in the program that his company went through one of their toughest tests and trials to date, in which FireEye detected that they were then hacked. The discovery made its to way to deal a breach to SolarWinds, an American software developer for businesses.

The hackers then eventually used the software in order for them to have access to various US government agencies and departments, including a number of such private firms.

Creating the "Doctrine"

Mandia then said that for companies to protect their data from ransomware attacks, one must have a certain "doctrine" in which there would be a specific way and guidelines as well on how to prevent such attacks, or if worse, how to deal with it when times of those situation would arrive. He also compared the doctrine he was proposing to the doctrine for the use of chemical weapons.

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He described companies must "know the rules of the game", despite the fact that one of the main problems that is deeply rooted with a cyberspace or a cyberenvironment setting is the lack of coming up with the doctrine. He also mentioned that attack such as what have happened with their company would still see further possibility, with chances of it being repeated are viable, or could go way up higher if companies or even the government would not to about it.

FireEye's Brief History

FireEye was founded in 2004 by a former Sun Microsystems engineer Ashar Aziz. The company began as a "sandboxing" company - in which incoming network traffic would be available and open within a virtual machine in order to test and try those for different malicious software before it could be launched to the corresponding network available.

Then in 2017, 13 years after it was founded, the company saw transition and rebranding wherein it became a software-as-a-service model selling company rather than primarily selling and offering appliances in various aspects for the commercial market.

FireEye offers a wide range of technology and advancement products and services, which includes network, email, and endpoint security. They also sell a platform for managing security operations center termed as Helix, a consulting services primarily based on such incident response, as well as threat intelligence products.

They also made various acquisition deals throughout the years, including deals with companies such as iSight Partners, Invotas, Verodin, Inc., Cloudvisory, Respond Software, and Mandiant - where Mandia was its founder, and now tops the executives of FireEye as its CEO, dating back in 2016 when he began his tenure with his then new title and position.