The hack of SolarWinds technology, which caused a breach of U.S. government systems late last year, is “the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen,” according to Microsoft Corp President Brad Smith. The campaign, which was identified in December and, according to federal government agencies, instigated by Russia for “intelligence gathering,” compromised SolarWinds technology that is used by all five branches of the U.S. military and numerous government agencies. The breach was achieved by inserting malware, or malicious code, into software updates for the SolarWinds Orion platform, a widely used network management tool. Hackers gained access to emails at the U.S. Treasury, Justice and Commerce departments, and other agencies. Up to 18,000 customers of Texas-based SolarWinds were using the compromised Orion network, according to a company filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company boasted of serving some 300,000 customers around the world in a partial customer …