Hackers that infiltrated the Texas-based software company SolarWinds with a malware hack that potentially impacted both government agencies and major companies reportedly focused on the company due to its market dominance.
Reuters reports that SolarWinds CEO Kevin Thompson stated on an earnings call two months ago that there is not a database or an IT deployment model that SolarWinds did not provide some level of monitoring or management to, boasting of the company’s great success over the past eleven years. Unfortunately, it seems it was that market dominance that made SolarWinds a target for hackers.
“We don’t think anyone else in the market is really even close in terms of the breadth of coverage we have,” Thompson told investors on the October 27 call. “We manage everyone’s network gear.”
On Monday, SolarWinds confirmed that Orion, its flagship network management software, had been hacked as part of a large-scale international cyberespionage operation. Hackers allegedly inserted malicious code into Orion software updates that were sent to nearly 18,000 customers.
SolarWinds boasts 300,000 customers worldwide including all five branches of the U.S. military including the Pentagon, the State Department, NASA, the NSA, the Department of Justice, and the White House. The 10 leading U.S. telecommunications companies and top five U.S. accounting firms are also SolarWinds customers.
In a statement, SolarWinds said: “We strive to implement and maintain appropriate administrative, physical, and technical safeguards, security processes, procedures, and standards designed to protect our customers.”
Kim Peretti, who co-chairs Atlanta-based law firm Alston & Bird’s cybersecurity preparedness and response team commented that assessing the damage done by the hack would be difficult, saying: “We may not know the true impact for many months, if not more – if not ever.”
Currently, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity arm are investigating what many experts believe to be a large-scale penetration of U.S. government agencies. Breitbart News reported more extensively on the hack here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.