On the heels of the concerning security incident experienced by FireEye [view related post], during the investigation of its own incident, FireEye discovered that multiple updates issued by SolarWinds, a cybersecurity firm that many governmental and private companies use to monitor networks, were “trojanized” and malware was inserted into the updates between March and May of 2020.

The malware allowed Russian operatives to hack into several governmental agencies, including the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), State, National Institutes of Health, Commerce (National Telecommunications and Information Administration Office) and Treasury. In addition, it is reported that the Departments of Justice and Defense also were customers of SolarWinds. The DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an emergency directive to all government agencies to disconnect and stop using SolarWinds.

This compromising situation is obviously concerning for national security, particularly when CISA’s Director Christopher Krebs was recently summarily dismissed and many other top leaders of the organization have departed when we most need strong leadership from the federal agency in charge of cybersecurity.

Unfortunately, the bad news doesn’t stop there. SolarWinds reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission this week that it believes that approximately 18,000 of its private company customers also could be affected by the malware.

Security experts are warning all private companies  to follow the CISA emergency directive to federal agencies and to disconnect and stop using SolarWinds until the details can be sorted out. Sound guidance for companies that use SolarWinds to mitigate risk until more information is available. It is important that executives and IT personnel be in close contact about whether the company uses SolarWinds and heed the CISA emergency directive to disconnect while the effects of the compromise are being determined.