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Okta mentioned Tuesday {that a} forensic investigation that it commissioned discovered that the hacker group Lapsus$ accessed two energetic buyer tenants in the course of the January breach of a third-party assist agency.
The menace actor “actively managed” a workstation belonging to 1 engineer on the assist agency, Sitel, for 25 consecutive minutes on January 21, throughout which era it accessed the 2 clients, Okta mentioned in a blog post.
Whereas Okta had beforehand mentioned that as many as 366 clients might have been impacted within the breach, the findings from the brand new investigation level to the precise affect being “considerably lower than the utmost potential affect that Okta initially shared.”
The findings are primarily based on a “thorough investigation [by] our inner safety specialists, in addition to a globally acknowledged cybersecurity agency whom we engaged to supply a forensic report,” Okta mentioned.
The id and entry administration agency mentioned this concludes its investigation into the breach.
Through the 25-minute window of time, “the menace actor accessed two energetic buyer tenants throughout the SuperUser software (whom we’ve got individually notified), and seen restricted extra info in sure different purposes like Slack and Jira that can not be used to carry out actions in Okta buyer tenants,” Okta mentioned.
The corporate didn’t specify what actions have been taken by Lapsus$ whereas it accessed the 2 clients, however famous a number of issues that the menace actor didn’t do throughout that interval. “The menace actor was unable to efficiently carry out any configuration adjustments, MFA or password resets, or buyer assist ‘impersonation’ occasions,” Okta mentioned within the publish. “The menace actor was unable to authenticate on to any Okta accounts.”
The findings exhibiting that the Lapsus$ breach was restricted to January 21 are available in distinction to the preliminary disclosure, primarily based on a forensic report commissioned by Sitel, that steered the attacker had entry to a assist engineer’s laptop computer from January 16-21.
Sluggish to reveal?
Okta didn’t disclose the incident till March 22, and solely then in response to Lapsus$ posting screenshots on Telegram as proof of the breach. The shortage of immediate disclosure ignited a debate within the cybersecurity neighborhood, with some criticizing the seller for its dealing with of the breach.
Okta finally mentioned it “made a mistake” in its response to the incident, and “ought to have extra actively and forcefully compelled info” about what occurred within the breach.
Within the weblog publish Tuesday, Okta mentioned that it acknowledges “how important it’s to take steps to rebuild belief inside our broader buyer base and ecosystem.”
“The conclusions from the ultimate forensic report don’t reduce our willpower to take corrective actions designed to forestall related occasions and enhance our capacity to answer safety incidents,” Okta mentioned. “That begins with reviewing our safety processes and pushing for brand spanking new methods to speed up updates from third events and internally for potential points, each large and small. We’ll proceed to work to evaluate potential dangers and, if essential, talk with our clients as quick as we will.”
