Halliburton, one of many world’s largest suppliers of providers to the vitality trade, has confirmed a cyberattack that pressured it to close down a few of its techniques earlier this week.
“On August 21, 2024, Halliburton Company (the “Firm”) became aware that an unauthorized third party gained access to certain of its systems,” the oil providers big stated in a submitting with the U.S. Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC).
“When the Company learned of the issue, the Company activated its cybersecurity response plan and launched an investigation internally with the support of external advisors to assess and remediate the unauthorized activity.”
The corporate added that the incident (first reported by Reuters on Wednesday based mostly on info offered by nameless sources) prompted it to close down some techniques to include the breach.
Halliburton additionally reported the breach to related legislation enforcement companies, and its IT specialists are actually engaged on restoring affected units and assessing the assault’s influence.
“The Company’s response efforts included proactively taking certain systems offline to help protect them and notifying law enforcement. The Company’s ongoing investigation and response include restoration of its systems and assessment of materiality,” Halliburton stated.
“The Company is communicating with its customers and other stakeholders. The Company is following its process-based safety standards for ongoing operations under the Halliburton Management System, and is working to identify any effects of the incident.”
Nature of the assault but to be revealed
The oil providers supplier has but to disclose the character of the assault, with a Division of Vitality spokesperson confirming on Thursday that “the exact nature of the incident is unknown at this time.”
Based in 1919, Halliburton employs over 40,000 folks and supplies oil applied sciences, merchandise, and providers to vitality firms worldwide. In July, Halliburton reported revenues of $5.8 billion and an working margin of 18% for the second quarter of 2024.
A Halliburton spokesperson was not instantly obtainable for remark when contacted by BleepingComputer earlier at this time.
In 2021, the DarkSide ransomware gang hit the techniques of Colonial Pipeline, the most important gas pipeline in the US, which provides roughly half of all of the gas on the U.S. East Coast, forcing it additionally to take some techniques offline to include the assault and briefly halt all pipeline operations.
The DarkSide ransomware gang abruptly shut down after elevated consideration from legislation enforcement, the U.S. authorities, and the media, however not earlier than Colonial Pipeline paid $4.4 million in cryptocurrency for a decryptor, most later recovered by the FBI.
