hackers—allegedly linked to Russian intelligence agencies—in attacking FireEye, a leading private cyber-security firm, it might have taken the world longer to discover that thousands of government bodies, corporations and even think-tanks around the world had been compromised for months.
The culprits had gotten into the target networks by compromising the software update servers of Solarwinds, exploiting the vulnerabilities in the global information technology (IT) supply chain.
As the world was dealing with the covid-19 pandemic, the hackers installed back doors, exfiltrated data, and perhaps planted other mischief that we are yet unaware of.