Accenture hit by ransomware attack from LockBit gang

Accenture, one of many world’s largest expertise consulting corporations, has been focused by ransomware gang LockBit.

The Dublin-based agency final week confirmed a cybersecurity incident, although it didn’t particularly classify it as a ransomware attack. The consultancy claims the attack had no impression on it or its techniques.

“Through our safety controls and protocols, we recognized irregular exercise in considered one of our environments,” mentioned Accenture spokesperson Stacey Jones in a press release. “We instantly contained the matter and remoted the affected servers. We absolutely restored our affected techniques from again up. There was no impression on Accenture’s operations, or on our shoppers’ techniques.”

Russian-speaking ransomware gang LockBit claimed accountability for the attack final Tuesday. The group set a ransom deadline for Thursday, August 12, demanding $50 million for six terabytes of knowledge, in response to cybercrime monitoring agency Cyble.

VX Underground, which claims to have the biggest assortment of malware supply code on the web, tweeted that LockBit launched greater than 2,000 information to the darkish internet for transient time, together with case research and shows.

LockBit has been lively since September 2019, and has focused hundreds of organisations. The group in October 2020 attacked Press Trust of India, downing the information large’s operations for hours. Press Trust survived the attack with out paying a ransom.

Cyber consultants usually discourage the paying of ransoms for quite a few causes. One is the incentivisation of future assaults. Ransom payers additionally don’t essentially get all their information again, and what they do get again possible can’t be trusted.

Technology consulting firms must be additional vigilant in opposition to safety threats, since most promote expertise and cybersecurity companies to their shoppers. How can they be trusted to supply high quality service if they will’t forestall breaches of their very own operations? Add to that the truth that consulting corporations maintain particularly delicate shopper info, and it’s much more essential that consultancies keep the best cyber defenses.

Breaches do happen, however. Deloitte was humbled in 2017 when it admitted its firm electronic mail server, based mostly on the Microsoft Azure cloud, was breached by hackers.