Accenture claims 'no impact' in apparent ransomware attack
Cybercriminals have breached IT consulting firm Accenture in an apparent ransomware attack but the global consulting giant says that the incident was immediately contained with no impact on it or its systems. The LockBit ransomware gang announced the attack on Tuesday night on its dark web leak site, setting a deadline of Thursday evening for the payment.
Fully restored our affected systems from back up: Accenture
Accenture said in a statement on Wednesday that it had identified irregular activity in one of their environments and immediately contained the matter and isolated the affected servers. It did not specify when the incident occurred or acknowledge that it was ransomware. But the description of its response was consistent with ransomware. "Fully restored our affected systems from back up," the company stated.
Accenture did not confirm how many servers were affected
It said that "there was no impact on Accenture's operations, or on our clients' systems." The Dublin-based company would not say how many servers were affected or whether data was stolen and, if so, how much and what kind. The Atlanta-based cybersecurity intelligence firm Cyble shared with The Associated Press chat images that it said were from Lockbit's official communications channel.
Criminals claimed they stole over six terabytes of top-secret data
In them, the criminals claim that they stole more than six terabytes of top-secret data from Accenture, for which they said they were demanding $50 million. The company would not comment on what kind of data, if any, was exfiltrated by the criminals. LockBit is a Russian-speaking ransomware syndicate that does not target former Soviet countries.
Active since September 2019, LockBit has attacked thousands of organizations
LockBit is one of the most efficient ransomware variants around, according to the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. Active since September 2019, it has attacked thousands of organizations. Among its known victims is the Press Trust of India, which was hit in October 2020. The largest news agency in India was crippled for hours but survived the attack without paying the ransom.
