The hackers who hit SolarWinds violated the networks of the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) and the US Department of Energy (DOE).
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It seems that America is in a state of electronic warfare, as too many sensitive government agencies have been compromised by the same group that hit SolarWinds.
For example, the NNSA, which is a semi-autonomous government agency responsible for maintaining and securing US nuclear stockpiles. Founded by the US Congress in 2000, it is also responsible for dealing with nuclear and radioactive emergencies within the United States and abroad.
US officials told Politico that federal investigators have found evidence that the hackers who attacked SolarWinds have access to US DOE and NNSA networks.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the Safe Transport Bureau, the DOE Richland Field Office and the Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories were all reportedly hit.
According to DOE spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes, the hackers focused their efforts primarily on FERC. The DOE also confirmed that the pirate group had also breached US nuclear weapons networks. It is currently in regular contact with the Electricity, Oil and Gas (ONG) and Information Exchange and Analysis Centers (ISAC) to ensure that other critical organisms are safe.
The breach of US government networks has been officially confirmed
This series of attacks led to the invasion of many US government networks, such as was officially confirmed by the FBI, CISA and ODNI.
The list of US government targets that have been violated also includes the US Treasury Department, the US Department of State, the NTIA, the NIH, the DHS-CISA and the US Department of Homeland Security.
The U.S. government suspects that the group behind this hacking campaign is the Russian state-run group APT29 (also known as Cozy Bear ), and had access to the compromised organizations' networks for an extended period of time, according to a CISA alert.
Danger to more violated government agencies
The backdoor used in these attacks, dubbed Solarigate or Sunburst, was distributed through SolarWinds' auto-update mechanism to the systems of some 18.000 customers.
SolarWinds' customer list includes more than 425 U.S. companies, the top ten U.S. telecommunications companies, as well as several government agencies, including the U.S. Military, the U.S. Pentagon, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of State, NASA, NSA, the Postal Service, NOAA, and the Office of the President of the United States.
CISA, after a series of confirmed violations by US government agencies, has asked federal civil services to immediately disconnect the affected SolarWinds Orion products from their networks.
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