Cyber attackers exploiting software updates to SolarWinds’ widely used IT performance monitoring platform

Dec 14, 2020 - 03:18 PM
Cybersecurity Lock on Gold Wall

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center are alerting organizations to a global cyberattack using a hidden back door or “trojanized” legitimate updates to the SolarWinds Orion performance monitoring platform to access public and private networks.

The attacks then retrieve and execute commands that can transfer and execute files, profile the system, reboot the machine and disable system services. For more on the cyber campaign, see the related advisories by SolarWinds and cybersecurity company FireEye and visit FireEye’s GitHub page for detection countermeasures.

“The SolarWinds update compromise, combined with the related breach of FireEye hacking tools last week, greatly accelerates the cyber risk to every organization in every sector,” said John Riggi, AHA’s senior advisor for cybersecurity and risk. “It is important to note that the corrupted SolarWinds Orion platform updates were released between March and June 2020 and a patch is not yet available to mitigate the full extent of the compromise. Organizations running SolarWinds should consider isolating any related infrastructure and block all internet access from servers and devices running SolarWinds software.” 

For more on this and other cybersecurity and risk issues, hospital and health system leaders may contact Riggi at jriggi@aha.org.

Related News Articles

Headline
FBI reminds of potentially malicious activity by Iranian cyber actors
The FBI is reminding critical infrastructure organizations to implement mitigations from a June 2025 fact sheet on potential actions by Iranian-affiliated…
Headline
CISA report updates findings on RESURGE malware attacks
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Feb. 26 released a report that updates findings from last year on RESURGE malware used to gain covert…
Headline
Agencies issue guidance on exploitation of Cisco systems by cyber actors 
U.S. and international agencies Feb. 25 released guidance on protecting Cisco Software-defined Wide-area Networking systems from exploitation by malicious…
Headline
NSA issues guidelines on zero trust architecture
The National Security Agency has released two phases of its Zero Trust Implementation Guidelines for organizations to improve their zero trust architecture.…
Headline
CISA announces town halls to gather public input on proposed cyber incident reporting requirements
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced Feb. 13 that it will host a series of virtual town hall meetings to gather public input on…
Headline
AHA podcast: The FBI’s Campaign Against Cyberthreats Part 2
John Riggi, AHA national advisor for cybersecurity and risk, talks with Brett Leatherman, FBI assistant director, Cyber Division, and Gretchen Burrier, FBI…