In December 2020, a cybersecurity company alerted the world to a
major cyberattack against the U.S. software development company,
SolarWinds, through the company’s Orion software product
(“SolarWinds Attack”). The SolarWinds Attack went
undetected for months, as it has been reported that the hackers
accessed the source code for Orion as early as March
2020.1 Orion is widely used by companies to manage
information technology resources, and according to SolarWinds Form
8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, SolarWinds
had 33,000 customers that were using Orion as of December 14,
2020.
It is alleged that the SolarWinds Attack was one part of a
widespread, sophisticated cyber espionage campaign by Russian
Foreign Intelligence Service actors which focused on stealing
sensitive information held by U.S. government agencies and
companies that use Orion.2 The hack was perpetuated
through SolarWinds sending its customers routine system software
updates.3 SolarWinds unknowingly sent out software
updates to its customers that included the hacked code that allowed
the hackers to have access to customer’s information technology
and install malware that…
