The business services giant Conduent has disclosed a massive data breach affecting over 10.5 million individuals. The incident, claimed by the SafePay ransomware gang, began with an intrusion in October 2024 that went undetected for nearly three months.
Business Impact
This is a catastrophic breach involving highly sensitive data, including names, Social Security numbers, medical information, and health insurance details. Conduent faces severe regulatory fines, massive reputational damage, and significant costs for recovery and victim services.
Why It Happened
The long dwell time (almost three months) before detection points to a failure in security monitoring and threat detection, allowing attackers ample time to map the network and exfiltrate 8.5TB of data before triggering the ransomware.
Recommended Executive Action
Review your organization’s security monitoring and log retention policies. Ensure your SOC or MSSP has the visibility and capability to detect lateral movement and data exfiltration, not just the final ransomware encryption. Long dwell times are the key enabler for massive breaches.
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