Indian IT services giant HCL Technologies hit by ransomware

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Indian IT giant HCL Technologies apparently suffered a significant ransomware  attack

Multiple media sources are claiming that the company filed a new report with the National Stock Exchange of India, in which it describes falling prey to a limited ransomware attack, stating that it “has become aware of a ransomware incident in an isolated cloud environment for one of its projects,” Cybernews reported. 

The company is now investigating the incident, including consulting relevant stakeholders to try and determine the root cause. While ransomware attacks are usually disruptive to a point where most of the victim’s systems are offline, in this case, operations are resuming as normal.

Affecting company value

“There has been no impact observed due to this incident on the overall HCLTech network,” the filing allegedly states.

HCL Technologies is one of the world’s largest IT companies, employing more than 225,000 people in 52 countries around the world. It is based in Noida, India, and earned $13 billion in revenue for fiscal 2023. Just before the disclosure of the incident, the company’s share price reached record highs, only to plunge afterward. The news brought the share price down roughly 5%, but it quickly recovered. At the time of reporting, the share price had fallen to $1462, down from record highs of $1510.

This is not the first major Indian company to be targeted with ransomware and malware this year. In March, the company’s largest pharma firm, Sun Pharmaceuticals, filed a report with the regulators, detailing an incident in which it lost company data and personal information. In October last year, Tata Power reported a similar breach. While not describing it as ransomware, it did say it needed to restore its systems. 

According to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), India is the third most targeted country in the world, Cybernews reminds.

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Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.