WASHINGTON — The US is currently fighting a massive hack that came to light on December 13, when Reuters reported that hackers had gained access to US Treasury and Commerce Department emails. <br /><br />Since then, officials say at least six government agencies were infiltrated and thousands of companies were infected with malware. <br /><br />The highly sophisticated hack was first discovered by a cyber security firm called FireEye. <br /><br />The company found that it had itself been hacked, meaning that the hackers could have hacked the powerful tools FireEye used to access top-secret systems. <br /><br />Researchers later found that SolarWinds software was at the core of the hack. <br /><br />They believe a SolarWinds product called Orion spread the malware via its own software updates. <br /><br />Once downloaded, the malware signaled back to its operators where it had landed. <br /><br />In cases where access was especially valuable, the hackers then used it to deploy more active malicious software to spread across its host. <br /><br />Part of the problem is that most people don't even know they have parts of SolarWinds software running on their systems, or on systems they use every day.
