By Saimon Michelson Feb 08, 2021 The SolarWinds attack is already being described as one of the worst cyber-espionage cases in history. This massive hack has compromised local, state and federal agencies in the U.S., as well as the European Parliament and NATO. The sweeping impact of this data breach, which keeps broadening as new information emerges, is a shrill wake-up call for government organizations to rethink their data protection strategies. Anatomy of the SolarWinds attack In March 2020, attackers injected a malicious Trojan into an update of the SolarWinds Orion IT infrastructure management software, which was then inadvertently distributed by SolarWinds and installed as an update to all Orion users -- 18,000 government and private users downloaded the compromised versions.