Deloitte hit by cyber-attack; clients’ confidential data stolen

By Warren Miller, contributing writer

New-York-based Deloitte, one of the largest accounting firms in the world, was reportedly the target of a clandestine hacking operation that may put a large number of their clients at risk.  According to The Guardian , Deloitte discovered the breach in March, but the company may have been exposed since last October or November. Although the extent of the hack is unclear, it’s unsettling for the accounting firm that counts many major international businesses among its clientele.

Deloitte is one of the largest private accounting firms in the country, providing auditing, tax consultancy, and, surprisingly, cybersecurity services to international banks, media conglomerates, pharmaceutical giants, and other private sector companies, as well as government agencies, both foreign and domestic. Deloitte reported over 37 billion dollars in revenue last year. Per The Guardian, the hack was so pervasive that any and all of Deloitte’s clients may have had confidential information exposed.

The hacker(s) reportedly used an administrator’s account that only required one password, giving them unrestricted access to everything from emails and passwords to confidential business information like architectural diagrams for soon-to-be constructed facilities and personal employee information. As of last week, six of Deloitte’s clients had been informed of the hack and that their secure information may have been compromised. Although the breach is believed to be focused on Deloitte’s U.S.-based clients, Deloitte won’t confirm how many and to what extent their clients may have been exposed.

Image source: Pixabay.

Deloitte has been trying to keep the hack under the radar, with only a handful of senior partners and lawyers being informed of it, according to The Guardian. The company’s internal investigation into the hack has been given the internal code name “Windham” and is centered in their Rosslyn, Virginia, offices. At the time of writing, there hasn’t been any progress made into determining the source of the attack or the reason behind it, be it industrial espionage or a state-sponsored cyber-attack. 

Hacks like these are becoming all too common, like the Equifax breach just last month. As we move closer to a world in which every relevant piece of information about ourselves is stored somewhere in a digital format, the risk of cybersecurity breaches becomes more profound. Having your social security or bank account routing number stolen is bad enough, but imagine if hackers could access the entire federal government’s financial information? Granted, it might take years to untangle such a large and complex database, but just grabbing all of the tax information would probably be an easy place for them to start. Let’s hope that tax information is guarded by more than just one password.