The ‘SolarWinds hack’, a cyberattack recently discovered in the US, has emerged as one of the biggest ever targeted against the US government, its agencies and several other private companies.

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Solar-Winds Hack

• It was first discovered by US cybersecurity company FireEye, and since then more developments continue to come to light each day.
• The US termed it as a highly sophisticated threat actor calling it a state-sponsored attack, although it did not name Russia.
• It said the attack was carried out by a nation with top-tier offensive capabilities and the attacker primarily sought information related to certain government customers.

How dangerous is the attack?

• This is being called a ‘Supply Chain’ attack.
• Instead of directly attacking the federal government or a private organization’s network, the hackers target a third-party vendor, which supplies software to them.
• Once installed, the malware gave a backdoor entry to the hackers to the systems and networks of SolarWinds’ customers.
• More importantly, the malware was also able to thwart tools such as anti-virus that could detect it.

The deadliest cyber-attack ever in the US

• The US Energy department which is responsible for managing America’s nuclear weapons is the latest agency to confirm that it has been breached in the SolarWinds cyber attack.

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