~18,000 organizations downloaded backdoor planted by Cozy Bear hackers

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About 18,000 organizations around the world downloaded network management tools that contained a backdoor that spies believed to be backed by the Russian government could use to install additional malware that stole sensitive data, the tools provider, SolarWinds, said on Monday.

The disclosure from Austin, Texas-based software maker SolarWinds, came a day after the US government revealed a major security breach hitting federal agencies and private companies. The US Departments of Treasury, Commerce, and Homeland Security departments were among the federal agencies on the receiving end of attacks that gave access to email and other sensitive resources.

Security firm FireEye, which last week disclosed a serious breach of its own network, said that hackers backed by the Russian government compromised a SolarWinds software update mechanism and then used it to infect selected customers who installed a backdoored version of the company’s Orion network management tool.

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