SolarWinds attack believed done in U.S.

A sprawling cyber attack that compromised popular software created by Austin-based SolarWinds Corp. was executed from within the U.S., a top White House official said, though the government believes Russia was responsible.

A federal investigation of the hack will take several months, Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger said in a briefing for reporters Wednesday.

She said the government believes it’s still at the “beginning stages” of understanding the scope and scale of the attack, which was first publicly disclosed in December but was likely executed months earlier.

Neuberger is leading the U.S. response to the SolarWinds attack. The company’s software is used by several government agencies and Fortune 500 companies.

As many as 18,000 SolarWinds customers received malicious code through updates to the software.