Hackers Break Into the US Treasury, Nuclear Agency, Microsoft, and 18,000 Companies
![[IMG]](https://imageproxy.themaven.net/https%3A%2F%2Fmaven.io%2Fapi%2Fuser%2FzmfATcSa4EegwR7v_znq6Q%2Fphoto%3Fversion%3D0)
Sophisticated hackers broke into numerous government agencies and at least 18,000 US companies.
Sophisticated Cyberattacks
News of hack broke
U.S. Cyber Firm FireEye Says It Was Breached by Nation-State Hackers.
FireEye said the attack compromised its software tools used to test the defenses of its thousands of customers.
This week we learn the hack did not start with FireEye, rather with SolarWinds, a trusted US security firm. The breach happened at least four years ago!
It was discovered only because of due diligence by a FireEye employee who took time to investigate an automated message regarding a login from an unknown device.
That's a type of automated message routinely decarded by almost everyone.
The suspected Russian hack involving SolarWinds compromised parts of the U.S. government. The scale surprised even veteran security experts.
Hack Suggests New Scope, Sophistication for Cyberattacks
The Wall Street Journal reports
Hack Suggests New Scope, Sophistication for Cyberattacks.
As the probe continues into the massive hack—which cast a nearly invisible net across 18,000 companies and government agencies—security specialists are uncovering new evidence that indicates the operation is part of a broader, previously undetected cyber espionage campaign that may stretch back years.
The attack blended extraordinarily stealthy tradecraft, using cyber tools never before seen in a previous attack, with a strategy that zeroed in on a weak link in the software supply chain that all U.S. businesses and government institutions rely on—an approach security experts have long feared but one that has never been used on U.S. targets in such a concerted way.
Most devastatingly, they
sneaked their malicious code into the legitimate software of a trusted software maker—an Austin-based company called SolarWinds Corp. and its software called Orion.
FireEye put more than 100 cyber sleuths on the job out of its roughly 3,400 total staff. Trained to investigate breaches at other companies, they now found themselves scouring the company’s own networks.
Security Breaches
- US Treasury
- Energy Department
- Department of Homeland Security
- State Department
- At least 18,000 corporations who downloaded SolarWinds updates
- While 80% of the victim companies were based in the U.S., Microsoft said that targets were also hit in the U.K., Canada, Mexico, Belgium, Spain, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Click to expand...