Accenture Confirms Data Stolen in Ransomware Attack

Consulting giant Accenture has confirmed that proprietary information was stolen in a ransomware attack disclosed in August 2021.

At the time, LockBit ransomware operators claimed to have stolen over 6 terabytes of data from Accenture’s systems, demanding a $50 million ransom to be paid in exchange for keeping the data private.

Given that Accenture did not pay the requested amount in due time, the attackers published over 2,000 files allegedly stolen during the incident, threatening to publish more of them.

Accenture said at the time that it was able to quickly contain the incident and restore affected systems from backups, but did not provide specific details on the type of data that was stolen.

In a Form 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week, the company confirmed that the attackers were able to steal some proprietary information from its servers.

“As previously reported, during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021, we identified irregular activity in one of our environments, which included the extraction of proprietary information by a third party, some of which was made available to the public by the third party,” the company said.

Accenture also notes that incidents such as unauthorized access to its systems, data theft, and breaches involving client systems enabled by or provided by the company haven’t had a material impact on operations, although a financial impact is expected.

It’s yet unclear what type of data the attackers were able to steal from Accenture. However, the company does not appear to have sent out breach notifications to alert of personally identifiable information being compromised.

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