What are we not even sure of?Īccording to Western security officials, one of the main concerns is how the hackers infiltrated SolarWinds. Russia declined participation and called the allegations 'groundless' with Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson of President Vladimir Putin. Officials have indicated an attack to hit Central Government, Defence, military establishments and intelligence institutions, which has all the hallmarks of a spy operation.
That's how in 2017 the NotPetya virus was implanted into Ukrainian accountancy software by a cyber unit run by the Russian GRU military intelligence services. security sources that the SVR, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, is behind the hack.Īlthough it was still too early to say the person responsible, Robert Hannigan, former general manager of British intelligence service GCHQ, said that the Russia agencies have a history of using software updates to deliver attacks like those on Orion. "The campaign is the work of a skilled player and it was carried out with considerable operational security," said FireEye.Īn investigation individual told U.S. Western security experts pointed Russia easily, although no official confirmation has been received. And what were they looking for and who were the hackers? SolarWinds shares decreased in early trading by 15% on Monday following the news of the hack. military branches the Pentagon the executive department: the NSA the Department of Justice and according to the company's website, the Office of the President of the United States. Some of America's most sensitive intelligence targets include the five U.S. SolarWinds's customers are Microsoft, McDonald's, Lockheed Martin and Yahoo, as well as various US and international government and military agencies. SolarWinds is a 20-year-old, Austin, Texas-based technology company with estimated sales of more than $1 billion this year. The scope of their disclosure remained to be discussed by the UK and EU cyber security agencies. It was also stated that the Treasury Department was targeted but refused to comment. One of its offices in the US has been broken by the Department of Commerce. No big corporations have exposed their hacking. SolarWinds said it had 275,000 clients worldwide on its website.īut on Monday the company said it felt it had downloaded "less than 18,000" of its customers.įireEye, a cyber security firm that last week announced it had been a hacker, said that it had discovered other victims in "government, consultancy, technologies, telecommunications and extractive entities worldwide. The attack did not entail an hour-long failure on Monday by the Google services. SolarWinds reported that it published updates from March to June this year, thereby increasing the risk that hackers will stay inside networks for nine months.
The hackers managed to inject malicious code into their customers' software updates, which allowed them to open a back door to spy their destinations on their computers. The IT company SolarWinds describes the program as a "one glass panel" capable of regulating anything in a device. What happened? What happened?Ī software piece called Orion is used by hundreds of thousands of companies around the world to handle their IT networks.
Hackers who work for a nation-state were able to hack applications from major government agencies and major corporations around the world, just as the West locked in earlier this year.Įverything we know so far is here. The US government has given an immediate alert about what appears in recent years to be one of the most advanced cyber-espionage operations. Security authorities are seeking to test one of the most complex cyber threats in recent years.
What are we aware of the SolarWinds hack?