A devastating cybersecurity attack targeting major branches of the U.S. government has put an untold number of Americans, agencies and government secrets at risk of compromise. The attackers, which may have been tied to the Russian government, penetrated federal computer systems through a popular piece of server software offered through a company called SolarWinds.
The threat apparently came from the same cyberespionage campaign that has afflicted cybersecurity firm FireEye, foreign governments and major corporations, and the FBI was investigating. The system is used by hundreds of thousands of organizations globally, including most Fortune 500 companies and multiple U.S. federal agencies, which will now be scrambling to patch up their networks.
The attackers planted malware in computer networks after using what FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia called “a novel combination of techniques not witnessed by us or our partners in the past.”
The sophisticated attack breached the Treasury and Commerce departments and potentially other agencies. The Commerce Department said in a statement that it asked the Department of Homeland Security’s computer engineering careers and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to investigate.
The Department of Homeland Security is also reviewing a possible breach at the agency, spokesman Alexei Woltornist said Monday.
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