Government IT contractor Conduent says 'third-party compromise’ caused outages

A recent outage affecting the government technology contractor Conduent was due to a cyberattack that compromised the company’s operating systems. 

A Conduent spokesperson told Recorded Future News the company recently “experienced an operational disruption due to a third-party compromise” of one of their operating systems.  

“This compromise was quickly contained and our technology environment is currently considered to be free of known malicious activity as confirmed by our third-party security experts,” the spokesperson said. 

“The required disciplined recovery caused several days of disruption to many of our operations.  Maintaining system integrity and functionality is as important to us as it is to our clients.”

The spokesperson declined to provide more information about the attack or answer other questions about whether ransomware was involved or if data was stolen. 

Conduent has dozens of contracts with state governments to provide technology solutions for programs involving Medicaid, child support, food assistance and more. The company said it “supports approximately 100 million U.S. residents across various government health programs, helping state and federal agencies deliver critical services while reducing costs, increasing program participation and improving compliance.”

News of the outage emerged last week when the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families told state residents that Conduent was experiencing a system outage preventing them from processing payments received by mail.

Parents and beneficiaries have complained about the outages, telling local news outlets they were struggling to make payments for days.

The systems were restored on Sunday, allowing the department to begin processing child support payments. Conduent provided the state with additional staff help to expedite the processing of delayed payments.

Wisconsin officials said four states were impacted by the outages but did not say which others were affected. Conduent did not respond to requests for comment about where the outages had an impact. 

“This outage is impacting payees who receive their payments via electronic transfer or an EBT card from receiving their scheduled support payment. Payors support payments, including via income withholding, are still being received and will be processed once the system is operational,” Wisconsin officials said. 

“We understand the gravity of this outage and the impact it has on Wisconsin families’ livelihoods.”

Last week, Conduent signed a $92 million contract with the state of Alaska to modernize, operate and manage the state’s Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS).

The company said it disburses approximately $100 billion in government payments annually. Conduent reported a revenue of more than $800 million in the last fiscal quarter. 

Cybersecurity expert Kevin Beaumont noted on social media that Conduent was hit with ransomware in 2020.