"Suspected Chinese hackers exploited a flaw in software made by SolarWinds Corp to help break into U.S. government computers last year FBI investigators recently found that the National Finance Center, a federal payroll agency inside the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was among the affected organizations, raising fears that data on thousands of government employees may have been compromised... The software flaw exploited by the suspected Chinese group is separate from the one the United States has accused Russian government operatives of using to compromise up to 18,000 SolarWinds customers... Reuters could not determine what information the attackers were able to steal from the National Finance Center (NFC) or how deep they burrowed into its systems. But the potential impact could be “massive,” former U.S. government officials told Reuters. The NFC is responsible for handling the payroll of multiple government agencies, including several involved in national security, such as the FBI, State Department, Homeland Security Department and Treasury Department, the former officials said. Records held by the NFC include federal employee social security numbers, phone numbers and personal email addresses as well as banking information... the NFC says it 'services more than 160 diverse agencies, providing payroll services to more than 600,000 Federal employees.'..." https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...payroll-agency-sources-idUSKBN2A22K8?rpc=401&
