In a concerning development, Google revealed on Thursday that over 100 companies may have been impacted by a sophisticated and far-reaching hacking campaign targeting Oracle’s widely used suite of business products — an early assessment that suggests the potential for extensive and long-lasting damage across industries.
Google, a unit of Alphabet, said in a statement that “mass amounts of customer data” were stolen in an operation it said may have begun as early as three months ago.
“This level of investment suggests the threat actor(s) responsible for the initial intrusion likely dedicated significant resources to pre-attack research,” the email said.
CL0P
Google, which has a vast cybersecurity practice alongside its better known search, email and video offerings, noted in a blog post that the group believed to be at the center of the intrusions, CL0P, has a long history of wide-ranging compromises against third party software or service providers.
In a separate statement to Reuters, Google analyst Austin Larsen said that “we are aware of dozens of victims, but we expect there are many more. Based on the scale of previous CL0P campaigns, it is likely there are over a hundred”.
Google said the hackers targeted Oracle’s E-Business Suite of applications, which Oracle clients use to manage customers, suppliers, manufacturing, logistics, and other business processes.
Oracle did not immediately return an email seeking comment. Previously, the company had confirmed that there was extortion activity aimed at its clients.
CL0P did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Previously, the hacker group said it would soon be clear that Oracle had “bugged up their core product.”
Gemini Enterprise
Meanwhile, Google on Thursday launched a new AI platform for business customers called Gemini Enterprise, as the tech giant ramps up efforts to capture more corporate clients with its artificial intelligence tools.
Gemini Enterprise will be powered by the company’s most advanced artificial intelligence models, and will act as a conversational platform where employees can chat with their companies’ data, documents and applications, Google said.
(With inputs from Reuters)
