Solarwinds, if you don’t know, it’s the same Company who owns Pingdom where all website owners check website speed but What is Solarwinds Hack and How it affected Microsoft, US Government and Google? As this hack becomes so big that it affected US Government security firms, Microsoft says SolarWinds hackers viewed source code, Google went down globally for 45 mins and so on…
Thursday, In a press release made by Microsoft. They reported that some of the source code has been accessed using illegal accounts by some group of hackers using Solarwinds.
What is Solarwinds Hack- How it affected Microsoft, US Government and Google (How true it is?)
It is not clear how much or what parts of Microsoft’s source code repositories the hackers were able to access, but the disclosure suggests that the hackers who used software company SolarWinds as a springboard to break into sensitive U.S. government networks also had an interest in discovering the inner workings of Microsoft products as well.
Microsoft had already disclosed that like other firms it found malicious versions of SolarWinds’ software inside its network, but the source code disclosure – made in a blog post.
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After Reuters reported it was breached two weeks ago. In addition to this, Microsoft also reported that they haven’t found any evidence to reach the source from where this was done. Microsoft said the hackers did not do – could have potentially disastrous consequences given the ubiquity of Microsoft products, which include the Office productivity suite and the Windows operating system. But experts said that even just being able to review the code could offer hackers insight that might help them subvert Microsoft products or services.
Even as Microsoft downplayed the risk associated with this discovery, it’s more evidence of just how far the attack has reached. Because SolarWinds’ network security software is widely used, the group behind the hack was able to potentially access an unprecedented amount of sensitive data from government agencies and major corporations. Government officials have said Russia is responsible, though investigators are still unraveling the full extent of the hack.
The SolarWinds hack is among the most ambitious cyber operations ever disclosed, compromising at least half-a-dozen federal agencies and potentially thousands of companies and other institutions. U.S. and private sector investigators have spent the holidays combing through logs to try to understand whether their data has been stolen or modified.
As per reports, The US government has also been attacked by hackers and the case hasn’t been disclosed yet. It is not clear how many or specifically which source code repositories the hackers were able to access. A Microsoft spokesman declined to elaborate on the blog post.
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Although, Microsoft has confirmed that investigation is going on and they’ve tightened its security and are working to find the loophole.In a separate analysis published by Microsoft on December 28, the company called the attack a “cross-domain compromise” that allowed the adversary to introduce malicious code into signed SolarWinds Orion Platform binaries and leverage this widespread foothold to continue operating undetected and access the target’s cloud resources, culminating in the exfiltration of sensitive data. Additionally, Microsoft also confirmed that this attack will not lead to any damage to their security and consumer data.
“This activity has not put at risk the security of our services or any customer data, but we want to be transparent and share what we’re learning as we combat what we believe is a very sophisticated nation-state actor,” the company said in its post on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog.
The sophisticated attacks are believed to be the work of the same Russian hacking group responsible for the 2016 attacks on the Democratic National Committee. But blaming anyone without any proof… Let’s wait till official confirmation from where this work has been done.
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US Government was also affected by Solarwinds Attack?
As per video of Coldfusion and other reports it is said that the same update was also installed by some governmental security systems as well that lead hackers to steal information from the systems with loss at credentials, emails and contacts over different departments.
“In March 2020, a major cyberattack by a group backed by a foreign government penetrated multiple parts of United States federal government, via software released from three U.S. firms: Microsoft, SolarWinds, and VMware, leading to data breaches, and the breach discovered December 2020. The hacking group Cozy Bear (APT29), backed by the Russian intelligence agency SVR, was identified as the cyberattackers.
The cyberattack and data breach was reported to be among the worst cyber-espionage ever suffered by the U.S., due to the sensitivity and high profile of the targets and the long duration (eight to nine months) in which the hackers had access. Within days of its discovery, at least 200 organizations around the world had been reported to be affected by the attack, and some of these may also have suffered data breaches.”- Wikipedia
All Google Down Worldwide in December 2020- Why?
As per the video above suggest that google passed statement for the failure of its database credentials that looks lame because it’s not peanut or a card tower due to which one failure can cause worldwide outrage so it seems like Google is also hiding something in between and it can lead to same Solarwinds Hack but its not sure to say for now.
What you can do to be safe?
1.Change Password of all Google Services right now
2.Try to Clear Cache & cookies & saved password from Chrome
3.Try out alternative instead of just depending on Google
Edited by- Invincible AG (Amogh Gupta)
