Exclusive: JetBrains, an obscure software company founded in Russia, based in the Czech Republic, is being investigated as playing a role in the Russian hack. Among its customers are SolarWinds, Google, Siemens, HP, VMWare with @SangerNYT @julianbarnes

JetBrains is not a household name but is used by 79/ Fortune 100. The product under investigation is TeamCity, which is used by developers to build and test their software. By planting a backdoor in TeamCity, Russia's hackers could have thousands of SolarWinds-style backdoors.

Investigators are still not certain how JetBrains relates to the larger SolarWinds hack, whether it was a parallel way for Russia's attackers to get into government and private systems, or whether it was the original pathway for Russian operatives to first penetrate SolarWinds.

But investigators believe we are looking at a "cascading supply chain attack" that could have a ripple affect across American networks. See previous reporting on how difficult SVR (lead suspect) is to evict from govt networks.

Apparently capitalizing on the moment lol

This is important news... maybe hang on to it until tomorrow? :\

where's the beef? I see no evidence in the story at all

Wow

Jetbrains? I use a few of their IDEs to develop software and I also use VMWARE for testing in a virtual machine. This is crazy.

Jetbrains used to have a highly regarded Java IDE🍸🙀

On a technical note: most JetBrains products are open-source, and can be examined on GitHub (a Microsoft-owned code-sharing repository). IF there was a compromise, it could have been via a malicious 3rd-party plugin which could be installed in the product...

Its a household name if you are involved in software or web development.

Just because you don't know the company it doesn't make them "obscure". They are a very well known software company within the IT industry and their products are great.

Exactly. This company is well-known by developers. PyCharm anyone?

Yup and Rider 👍

Intellij IDEs have been the best that I have used.

WebStorm

They were founded in Prague and remain based in the Czech Republic. They have Russian employees, but that does not make it a "Russian company." By association, Google and Microsoft are Russian companies, then?

Founded in Russia.

Better tell someone to change the Wikipedia article then. It says Prague.

To be fair, founders are Russian and lived in Russia (not sure where CEO and others reside now). Same applies to earliest hires they've had. Pretty fair to call them Russian in that regard. However, I refuse to believe they have anything to do with hacks, that must be bullshit.

And Sergey Brin is...

As in “IntelliJ” Jetbrains? Uh-oh

Oh, hell. Does this mean we're going to have to use that MS crap for an IDE?

Or even worse... Eclipse.

Long live VSCode! (really, the java integration has gotten ridiculously good)

Noooooooooooo!

That is scary. It is also the maker of Android Studio.

Used by 79 of the Fortune 100 doesn’t seem very obscure...

Not that obscure. Many many US software developers use Jet Brains. Huge brand.

LOL, it's VERY out of touch to say "obscure" for JetBrains. They're a great software company all of tech relies on. Hopefully this wasn't intentional / true.

I'm so disappointed in those 21/100 companies....

I hope you really have some good proof for that. Cause it's a very respected company and a intentional loophole in their software is hardly imaginable. Can you give some more information why you came to this conclusion?

That's too bad because JetBrains have fantastic software.

JetBrains is not obscure

Jetbrains products, extremely well known for some years, are fantastic. Your tweet implies they collaborated in or deliberately facilitated the Russian hack, which is just plain wrong to imply. AFAIK SolarWinds may not have properly secured their copy of TeamCity.

"properly secured their copy" implies at the very least a flaw in the product. Security is the responsibility of the product, not the users.

wrong. responsibility is shared. no one can protect you if your servers stay open and not patched

Every significantly sized company will have more than a few improperly secured Jenkins instances. It’s the most common weakness exploited by red teams.

exactly. Jenkins had its portion earlier and still has lots of vulnerabilities, which have to be secured at the usage side. However, jenkins is not "founded in Russia" and politically biased "cybersecurity reporters" can't make a big headline of it

That's a hard no from every OS/Firewall/Browser vendor on the planet - they do what they can, but they cannot stop the user from shooting themselves in the foot

They're not "obscure"; do some research.

Wow. Jetbrains is not at all obscure if you are in dev. Builders, not "IT". That's where the security action is.

Obscure = Unknown to journalists 😉

I'm a tech journo and know about JetBrains, but I think it's fair to say the average person does not. I wouldn't have said "obscure," but well known among devs does not mean well known in general.

Ahhhhhh. 'Widely used but unknown to journalists"

That's on the journalists.

Oh, common. It's like "I am not driving a car, I don't know what Shell is"

JetBrains is not at all obscure. They make some of the most popular IDEs in the world.

If it is true, the implication can be far-reaching. Its software is very popular among Java and some c++ developers and almost exclusively by Android developer. It can be equipped to steal and alter every software it is used on.

Very big in the php space aswell, PHP Storm is one of the most popular IDEs, they even sponsor the main maintainers of the language too.

"JetBrains did not immediately return a request for comment." Becuase they are closed for the Orthodox Christian Christmas!

Orthodox Christian Christmas aren't observed in Czech Republic

Discrediting google! just what China ordered..

Did you check if the hackers also maybe used.... some Apple computers? or Ford cars? or did they eat at McDonalds sometimes? Those should probably be investigated too... #whatkindofreportingisthat

Hmm, that wasn't a good first impression. Cybersecurity reporter, haven't heard about JetBrains.. uh, lack of research?

Yea but they make plenty of products. Windows and browsers and other software is also plenty used to piggyback on. Does that make Microsoft obscure?

Micro-who? 😜

Are you drunk?

JetBrains?

JetBrains is far from an obscure company in the software development industry, just saying...

No way I love their ide

Hmm, are you suggesting the company was required to do this China-style ? Surely a compromised individual or an external compromise of their software ?

No.

(No comment)

May be yes, may be no, may be sex? - I don't know

the fuck?!

Surprising, why would they do this, considering their excellent position in the market ?

Major companies I worked for used to use Jetbrains software all the time. We are talking large , large numbers of users.

Is there real evidence or just based on the fact they are based in the Czech Republic .

(No comment)

Journalist working for obscure newspaper calls well known company "obscure".

“Obscure”. I don’t know a single developer who doesn’t know, or used at least once, one of JetBrains’s product.

Looks at my tweets from the past week, like I said the SolarWinds hack may of been a trial balloon to see how far they could get in weaponizing the software development and distribution lifecycle. If you can get malware into a signed common or shared lib used buy by a major

I doubt anyone working in tech would call JetBrains "obscure".

software package its pretty major, what do you trust that next Windows update, how about that new version of product X. Sanctions are needed and quickly and unfortunately probably planted some ideas in the minds of domestic hackers as well.

Next you say "MS Edge is a obscure hacking tool, it was used by those who did the Solarwind Hack" You earned some reputation today. Not.