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Bleach and cleaning product maker Clorox has filed a lawsuit against IT service provider Cognizant following a 2023 cyber attack through which threat actors used credentials to log into the cleaning product maker’s systems and launched ransomware.
The threat actor, the Scattered Spider hacking collective, reportedly used social engineering techniques to convince Cognizant’s IT helpdesk to hand over the credentials, allowing them to launch the attack on Clorox.
The lawsuit alleges that the threat actor simply asked the Cognizant service desk, which was provided for use by Clorox, for the credentials.
“Cognizant’s operation of the service desk came with a simple, common-sense requirement: never reset anyone’s credentials without properly authenticating them first. Clorox made this easy for Cognizant by providing them with straightforward procedures to follow whenever providing credential recovery or reset assistance,” the lawsuit said.
“Despite assuring Clorox that it was following these procedures, Cognizant’s conduct on August 11, 2023, demonstrated spectacularly that it was failing to do so. Cognizant repeatedly gave a cyber criminal access to Clorox’s network by handing them credentials without properly authenticating them or otherwise following Clorox’s process.
“Cognizant was not duped by any elaborate ploy or sophisticated hacking techniques. The cyber criminal just called the Cognizant Service Desk, asked for credentials to access Clorox’s network, and Cognizant handed the credentials right over.”
The lawsuit also has an apparent copy of the conversation between the threat actor, which simply saw the criminal say they didn’t have a password and thus could not connect, while the Cognizant agent responded by providing the password to them.
Clorox also said that Cognizant’s response to the cyber attack was “botched” and led to “compounded” damages.
However, in a statement seen by Reuters, Cognizant denies responsibility for the incident as it does not manage the company’s cyber security and was only hired for limited help desk services.
“Clorox has tried to blame us for these failures, but the reality is that Clorox hired Cognizant for a narrow scope of help desk services, which Cognizant reasonably performed,” Cognizant said.
The cyber attack led to a total of US$380 million in damages, largely as a result of Clorox’s inability to ship its product to retailers, leading to a halt in sales. However, US$50 million of the total was spent in the company’s recovery process.
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