Cyber incident: IT service provider Atos allegedly the victim of data theft

An online gang called Spacebears claims to have broken into the French IT security and cloud company Atos and copied data from there. The company has not yet found any evidence of such data theft. Atos has around 95,000 employees worldwide and generates an annual turnover of 10 billion euros.

Spacebears' darknet presence shows an entry dated at the weekend, in which a countdown threatens the publication of the allegedly stolen data in almost exactly one week from the time of the report. In the "file list", the criminals claim to have copied the company database. They do not discuss exactly what data it is supposed to contain.

Atos finds no traces of intrusion

In a statement, Atos declared that it had discovered no evidence of a break-in. "On December 28, the Spacebears ransomware group claimed to have compromised an Atos database. At this time, initial analysis has shown no evidence of any compromise or ransomware of any Atos/Eviden systems in any country, and no ransom demands have been received to date," the company explains there.

"Nonetheless, Atos takes such allegations very seriously. The cyber security team is actively investigating the situation and updates will be provided if there are any changes to the above information," Atos continues.

By its own account, Atos is one of the leading companies involved in digital transformation. It has around 82,000 employees in 69 countries, generating an annual turnover of 10 billion euros. According to Atos, its services range from cyber security to cloud services and high-performance computing. Atos is also active in the KRITIS environment.

Ransomware gangs remain very active. Recently, however, there have also been more alleged digital intrusions into companies for which no evidence has been found and in which no sensitive data has been published.

(dmk)