Cognizant set to lose up to $70m due to ransomware attack
Maze attack affected the IT service provider's internal network
Cognizant looks set to lose around $50 to $70 million as a direct result of a recent ransomware attack, the IT services provider revealed in its Q1 earnings call.
Last month, the firm said it had been targeted by a "Maze" ransomware attack on 18 April, which effectively shut down its internal systems and causing service disruption for many of its customers.
As reported by ZDNet, Cognizant said it responded to the attack quickly but still expects its second quarterly earnings to take a notable hit due to the resulting downtime and the temporary suspension of customer accounts.
"While we anticipate that the revenue impact related to this issue will be largely resolved by the middle of the quarter, we do anticipate the revenue and corresponding margin impact to be in the range of $50 million to $70 million for the quarter," said Cognizant CFO Karen McLoughlin in the earnings call.
Maze software is typically used by hackers to steal a business' data and store it on an external server, allowing them to demand payment for its safe recovery with a threat of releasing the information if it is not received.
Cognizant said the hackers targeted select system-supporting employees as they were working from home, as well as the provisioning of laptops being used to support work-from-home capabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The provider's CEO Brian Humphries explained that the ransomware attack only affected its internal network and customer systems were not impacted.
"First, the attack encrypted some of our internal systems, effectively defaming them and we proactively took other systems offline," Humphries said.
RELATED RESOURCE
Remote office networks pose a business and reliability risk
A survey of IT professionals shows that nearly every company suffers direct business impact from network service interruptions
"Some clients opted to suspend our access to their networks. Billing was therefore impacted for a period of time, yet the cost of staffing these projects remained on our books."
Cognizant said it reacted swiftly to the attack, mobilising its entire leadership team, deploying the expertise of its security teams, as well as contacting leading cyber security experts.
"Nobody wants to be dealt with a ransomware attack," Humphries added. "I personally don't believe anybody is truly impervious to it, but the difference is how you manage it. And we tried to manage it professionally and maturely."
-
Ransomware cartels are fragmenting into volatile splinter groups, warns Met Police cyber chiefNews Commoditized "cyber crime bazaars" and AI data mining are forcing law enforcement to rewrite its playbook
-
New ransomware threat group, The Gentlemen, has become one of the most active ransomware operators, accounting for 10% of all attacksNews NTT researchers warn that the RaaS group is leveraging SystemBC malware to establish covert tunnelling, evade detection, and support rapid lateral movement across enterprise environments
-
Instructure chose to a pay ransom following the Canvas cyber attack – research shows more than half of security leaders would follow suitAnalysis Opting to pay ransoms creates huge risks for enterprises – you’re relying on the word of criminals
-
Ransomware negotiator sentenced for role in major cyber crime groupNews Deniss Zolotarjovs was a key player in a group associated with Conti
-
Threat actors ditch ‘spray and pray’ attacks in shift to targeted exploitationNews A dip in ransomware volumes points to a more targeted approach focused on vulnerability exploitation
-
Security leaders overconfident about ransomware recovery
News Few manage to recover all their data, and many experience business disruption
-
German authorities want your help finding the hackers behind GandCrab and REvilNews Daniil Maksimovich Shchukin and Anatoly Sergeevitsch Kravchuk are believed to have made millions from ransomware as a service schemes
-
The rise of teen hackers ‘makes for a good headline’, but cyber crime activities peak later in life
News With family responsibilities and mortgages to pay, it's not teenagers dishing out malware or carrying out cyber extortion
