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After $380M Hack, Clorox Sues Its “Service Desk” Vendor for Simply Giving Out Passwords
ALAMEDA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, JUL 23 – Clorox alleges Cognizant's failure to verify credentials enabled a $380 million cyberattack by the Scattered Spider group, causing major operational disruption and product shortages.
- On August 11, 2023, Scattered Spider hackers breached Clorox’s corporate network by social-engineering calls to Cognizant’s help desk, enabling unauthorized access.
- From 2013 to 2023, Cognizant served as Clorox’s IT provider, agents failed to follow credential support procedures, and Clorox is seeking $380,000,000 in damages.
- According to the complaint, at no point during any of the calls did the Agent verify that the caller was in fact Employee 1, and the hacker offered credentials verbally.
- After detecting the intrusion in three hours, Cognizant’s errors paralyzed Clorox’s network and halted manufacturing, and Clorox ejected the intruder within five days.
- This incident underscores the need for robust authentication protocols, as Scattered Spider recently used similar tactics against UK retailers Marks & Spencer and Co-op.
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Ars TechnicaReposted by 
Techcratic
TechcraticAfter $380M hack, Clorox sues its “service desk” vendor for simply giving out passwords
Hacking is hard. Well, sometimes. Other times, you just call up a company's IT service desk and pretend to be an employee who needs a password reset, an Okta multifactor authentication reset, and a Microsoft multifactor authentication reset... and it's done. Without even verifying your identity. So you use that information to log in to the target network and discover a more trusted user who works in IT security. You call the IT service desk back…
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Coverage Details
Total News Sources19
Leaning Left0Leaning Right1Center5Last UpdatedBias Distribution83% Center
Bias Distribution
- 83% of the sources are Center
83% Center
C 83%
R 17%
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