Indian tech giant HCL investigating ransomware attack

Indian information technology company HCL Technologies reported a ransomware attack to regulators on Wednesday and said that it is investigating the incident.

In a filing with the National Stock Exchange of India, the company said it “has become aware of a ransomware incident in an isolated cloud environment for one of its projects.”

“There has been no impact observed due to this incident on the overall HCLTech network. Cybersecurity and data protection is a top priority for HCLTech,” the company’s secretary Manish Anand said.

“A detailed investigation is underway in consultation with relevant stakeholders to assess the root cause and take remedial action as necessary. This is for your information and records.”

HCL Technologies, based in Noida, is one of the largest tech companies in the world with more than 225,000 employees spread across 52 countries. The company reported revenues of $13 billion for fiscal 2023. HCL Technologies shares fell 3.24% on Wednesday.

This is the latest ransomware attack in 2023 to target a major Indian corporation. The country’s largest drugmaker, Sun Pharmaceuticals, confirmed a ransomware attack in regulatory filings in March, warning that the incident involved the theft of company data and personal information.

Tata Power reported a cyberattack in October 2022 that affected its billion-dollar power business. Tata did not call the incident a ransomware attack but reported that it was forced to “restore” systems and segment the affected networks in order to protect other parts of their business.

In April, India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) said that reported ransomware attacks on organizations in the country increased 53% throughout 2022.

“IT & [Information Technology Enabled Services] was majorly impacted sector followed by Finance and Manufacturing. Ransomware players targeted critical infrastructure organizations and disrupted critical services in order to pressurize and extract ransom payments,” they said.