There’s no way critical data would be destroyed without being backed up. No critical program has a single point of failure. That doesn’t mean someone might not send a message akin to “we know what you’re doing and that it goes through here” — even if it’s a pass-through for data.
This starts to get into spy thriller territory, but it is so weird I’m going to... let’s imagine the US wasn’t a passive victim of the Solarwinds hack. Let’s imagine we have been just as active, if not more-so, in our our cyber warefare. What if Solarwinds wasn’t an offense move, but a response. And what if since we have increased our own efforts to disrupt critical infrastructure in our response. Remember, a bug we introduced to Iran years ago blew up their centrifuges, which was a critical piece (in their view) of their national defense.
Point is, this could be someone sending a message that they have a blueprint to where they can do real damage if they so choose, so back off.
Or, it could be a guy who thought he could bore a hole in the wall and steal the photos from Taylor Swift’s iCloud.