The long running legal dispute between the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission and SolarWinds has concluded after the agency decided to withdraw its case against the company and its Chief Information Security Officer, Timothy G Brown.
In a joint motion submitted to the court on November 20, 2025 the SEC SolarWinds and Brown asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed. The SEC noted that its choice to drop the matter “does not necessarily reflect the Commission’s position on any other case.”
The agency first targeted SolarWinds and Brown in October 2023 claiming they misled investors about the company’s security standards before the major 2020 supply chain breach. According to the SEC the company overstated the strength of its cybersecurity measures and failed to properly disclose known risks. It also alleged that SolarWinds and Brown overlooked repeated warning signs and did not take sufficient action to protect the company’s systems. The breach was later linked to a Russian state sponsored group known as APT29.
The SEC said at the time that “Brown was aware of SolarWinds’ cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities but failed to resolve the issues or at times sufficiently raise them further within the company.”
A turning point came in July 2024 when the U.S District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed many of the SEC’s claims. The court ruled that several accusations did not show actionable failures in SolarWinds’ reporting of the incident and relied too heavily on hindsight and speculation.
Following this partial setback, the SEC proceeded to file separate charges against Avaya Check Point Mimecast and Unisys for what it described as materially misleading disclosures tied to the broader attack that originated from the SolarWinds compromise.
SolarWinds Chief Executive Officer, Sudhakar Ramakrishna said the conclusion of the case marks the end of a challenging period for the company. He stated that the company now moves forward stronger, more secure and better prepared for the future.
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