The Same U.S. Government That Wants To Weaken Our Encryption Just Got Massively Hacked

The U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments, along with untold numbers of government and corporate computer networks, have been breached in what may be an espionage attempt by the Russian government. (The Russians are, of course, denying responsibility.)

The avenue was reportedly a malicious software update pushed through SolarWinds Inc., an Austin-based network management company that counts both the federal government and hundreds of major U.S. companies among its clients. Essentially, the hackers slipped some malicious code into a software update; if you were on the infected networks that installed the update, this gave the hackers backdoor access to your data.

The infiltration apparently began in the spring but was not announced until this past weekend. SolarWinds reports that as many as 18,000 customers may have downloaded the infected update.

The Wall Street Journal reports that this infiltration may be above and beyond the usual cyberespionage:

While those familiar with the hack couldn’t precisely specify its scope or the resulting damage to the U.S. government, several described it as among the most potential