10 Boldest Statements From The SolarWinds Senate Hearing Senators and tech executives discussed how the SolarWinds hackers used AWS’ infrastructure, took advantage of Microsoft’s authentication process, dwelled in FireEye’s systems and remained undetected for months. By Michael Novinson February 24, 2021, 10:05 AM EST 4. Who Do Tech Execs Believe Is Behind The SolarWinds Attack? Smith: At this stage, we’ve seen substantial evidence that points to the Russian foreign intelligence agency, and we have found no evidence that leads us anywhere else. So we’ll wait for the rest of the formal steps to be taken by the government and others, but there’s not a lot of suspense at this moment in terms of what we’re talking about. It’s very, very clear that this agency is very, very sophisticated, and that has been true for a long time.