Isentia, with its headquarters based in Sydney, has reported a significant ransomware attack on its main intelligence and insights service, Mediaportal.
Mediaportal is a SAAS service used by both private and public sector customers. Mediaportal is Isentia’s flagship communications platform that provides users with a cloud-based news management system as it happens.
The company has informed investors the security incident was “significant”. Significant enough for them to halt trading on the Australian Stock Exchange on the Friday. Insentia released a statement the following Tuesday (3rd November 2020) highlighting the attack occurred when the company was transitioning to a new debt facility with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
The actual technical details of the attack are limited. However, security experts assessed servers as they were brought back online, as part of a systematic piece of work to sever the unauthorised access.
Isentia suggested early estimates that it will cost them between $7 million and $8.5 million in pre-tax earnings in this financial year, potentially more. The CEO, Ed Harrison also highlighted they had “responded rapidly” to the incident.
With breaches becoming ever more common, the question for any company when it comes to experiencing a breach is “when”, then “if”. This example shows that an attack can happen to any type of company, and even with an early response can be highly detrimental.
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