US agencies hit in brazen attack by suspected Russian hackers

Bloomberg

In one of the most audacious hacks in recent memory, US government agencies were attacked as part of a global campaign that exploited a flaw in the software updates of a
US company. The hackers are suspected to be part of a notorious hacking group tied to the Russian government, the Washington Post reported.
The attack included breaches at the US Treasury and Commerce departments and those of other government agencies in an attack that started months ago, the newspaper reported. The same hacking group is also believed to be behind the recent attack on the cyber-security firm FireEye Inc.
“We have identified a global campaign that introduces a compromise into the networks of public and private organisations through the software supply chain,” FireEye said in a blog post, without naming a specific group for the breach.
FireEye described a highly sophisticated attack that
exploited updates in
widely used software from Austin, Texas-based SolarWinds, which sells technology products to a Who’s Who list of of sensitive targets. These include the State Department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, the FBI, all five branches of the US military, and 425 corporations out of the Fortune 500, according to the company’s website and government data.
The series of attacks could rank as among the worst in recent memory, though much remains unknown, including the motive and scope of the hacks. The hackers have been monitoring internal email at the US Treasury and Commerce departments, Reuters reported. “The United States government is aware of these reports and we are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation,” John Ullyot, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement.
All federal civilian agencies were ordered by the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to review their networks and disconnect or power down SolarWinds’s Orion software products immediately.