Risk Assessments/Management, Breach

Novartis: Industrial Spy attack didn’t impact sensitive data

Novartis announced that a recent Industrial Spy cyberattack was not able to compromise sensitive data just a day after the data-extortion gang began selling data claimed to be stolen from the pharmaceutical giant, according to BleepingComputer. Industrial Spy on Thursday posted on its Tor extortion marketplace a listing for information allegedly from Novartis worth $500,000 in Bitcoin, with the stolen data claimed to be related to Novartis' DNA- and RNA-based drug technology and tests. Further examination of the listing revealed 7.7 MB of PDF files, which may have been stolen on Feb. 25, as indicated by the files' timestamps. "Novartis is aware of this matter. We have thoroughly investigated it and we can confirm that no sensitive data has been compromised. We take data privacy and security very seriously and have implemented industry standard measures in response to these kind of threats to ensure the safety of our data," said Novartis, which did not provide further information about the timeline and process of the breach.

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