Wipro confirms phishing attack on its system — 11 other companies unknown

• Wipro Ltd , an Indian information technology company, confirms that its computer systems were breached by a phishing attack — and so were the systems of 11 other companies.
• The company has since quarantined the compromised systems and launched an independent forensics survey.
• Wipro Ltd denies having known about the breach from months claiming that system alerts only go back one week.

India is one of the most targeted countries when it comes to phishing attacks and Wipro Ltd, a Indian information technology company, was its latest victim. According to a report by KrebsOnSecurity, a phishing attacks on Wipro Ltd’s computer systems used employee accounts to again access to customer information.

And, at least 11 other companies were attacked as well according to evidence found in file folders on the back-end infrastructure of the intrusion. But, the exact objective of the attacks is still unclear.

The company confirmed the report, released a security patch and has hired its own independent forensics firms to help with the investigation. But, Wipro Ltd has refrained from sharing any details about how many customers’ data and employees’ accounts were left vulnerable.


Wipro Ltd system were apparently being used as ‘jumping-off’ points for digital fishing expeditions gaining access to Wipro Ltd systems. The employees of those systems have since been quarantined and Wipro Ltd claims that the malware attack should not have any ‘material impact’ on its financials.

To know or not to know?

While it has been established that Wipro Ltd did not know about the breach some time in advance, the ongoing debate is whether they knew about it a week or months in advance.

KrebsOnSecurity asserts that the phishing attack was a multi-month process from a state-sponsored attackers. Wirpo’s COO Bhanumurthy BM, on the other hand, claims that the alerts were only detected a week ago.



Earlier this month, the Indian government sold off ₹11.5 billion of ‘enemy’ Wipro Ltd shares that the Custodian of Enemy Property had been holding onto. They’re essentially shares that belonged to individuals who have since migrated to Pakistan or China and are no longer Indian citizens.


KrebsOnSecurity speculates that the development along with the $75 million settlement to National Grid US after a botched systems applications and products in data processing (SAP) upgrade and cancelling of its Medicaid enrollment system contract with the US state of Nebraska, may have had something to do with the phishing attack.

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