Authorities say that some of America’s deepest secrets may have been stolen in a months-long espionage campaign that just came to light. The operation has been blamed on Russian government hackers and occurred when threat actors were able to slip malicious code into a software update issued by popular provider SolarWinds, whose services are used throughout the government. This created a backdoor in which Russian hackers were able to access emails and other sensitive information from a handful of different agencies, although the full effects remain unknown.
The operation is one of the most prolific experienced by the US and may have exposed government and private secrets, however, it may take months to find out what specific information was accessed. Dozens of US government agencies, including the Treasury and Commerce departments, were infiltrated as early as March. One expert claims that the campaign bears similarities to the 1990s Russian hacks on US government targets such as NASA and the Pentagon in which a wealth of private documents were stolen.
Read More: Hack May Have Exposed Deep US Secrets; Damage Yet Unknown