UK’s Capita experienced a security incident within its systems

Capita, one of the world’s largest business outsourcing companies, disclosed that it experienced an alleged cybersecurity incident last week. The announcement claimed that the company had contained most of the issue and that its services were in the restoration process.

In a short statement, the UK-based company confirmed that the incident primarily affected internal access to its MS 365 app, disrupting some client services.

The IT security monitoring abilities of the company immediately notified the relevant individuals about the incident. The security team has quickly applied its technical crisis management protocols.

In addition, the quick actions from the team have seemingly isolated and contained the issue. The impact of the incident has only compromised the Capita network, and there are no signs of customer data compromise. Furthermore, the company’s employees and suppliers suffered no damage from the incident.

 

The specialist technical partners of Capita have played a vital role in containing the issue.

 

Capita claimed that one of its technical partners had aided them in recovering employee access to MS 365. Additionally, the company had steady progress in resolving the remaining compromised client services.

However, the company has yet to discover the cause of the cybersecurity incident, but it could be a ransomware attempt from a threat actor.

The UK may have dodged a bullet since a compromise from one of the main business outsourcing provider could have a massive impact on its public services.

Capita has a long-standing contract with the UK’s critical sector, such as helping run projects for Royal Navy training centres and security at Ministry of Defence bases. The company also helps with tagging prisons and probation services.

A separate source revealed that Capita’s workforce at a critical infrastructure site has resorted to a pen-and-paper workflow with radios to complete their tasks. Hence, the attack had a slight effect on the company’s operations.

The report also stated that the phone lines for council tax, business rates, and benefits were closed to multiple local authority customers of the company. The affected customers are Dagenham, South Oxfordshire, Barking, and Barnet.