Conduent confirms data breach impact on clients’ details

American business service behemoth Conduent has confirmed the January data breach resulted in hackers stealing customer details, although there’s no evidence that the info was leaked online.

The attack hit the company in mid-January this year, Conduent confirmed on a FORM-8K filing with the SEC. Attackers penetrated digital defenses and accessed a “limited portion” of Conduent’s environment.

Several of Conduent’s clients experienced disruption in the initial days of the attack. For example, Wisconsin’s Department of Children and Families said the outage impacted payees who receive their payments via an electronic transfer system.

Conduent, established as a divestiture from Xerox Business Services, offers various digital platforms for businesses and governments. The company employs over 30,000 staff and enjoys yearly revenues exceeding $4 billion.

Conduent’s filing said the cyberattack did not have a material impact on its operations. However, the same cannot be said about the safety of customers' data. According to the filling, the exposed data sets contained a “significant number of individuals’ personal information associated with our clients' end-users.”

The company explained that due to the complex nature of the leaked files, it had to hire cybersecurity data mining experts to evaluate the extent of the attack. However, the filing claims that the stolen data was not publicly disclosed.

While the filling doesn’t specify what type of cyberattack hit Conduent, available information points to a likely ransomware attack. However, Cybernews could not identify any ransomware gang taking credit for the attack.

The January attack is not the first time hackers have targeted Conduent – Maze ransomware targeted the company in the summer of 2020.