Telefónica: Infostealer campaign exposes internal Jira issues

Cyber criminals claim on the darknet forum Breach Forums to have captured a substantial data set of customer, employee, and internal company data in a cyberattack on the Spanish telecommunications provider Telefónica. The data set is said to contain more than 5,000 internal files, 236,493 customer records and around half a million Jira tickets.

The cybersecurity company Hudson Rock apparently spoke to the attackers. According to the attackers, they were able to gain initial access through Infostealer malware, which they used to steal the access data of 15 Telefonica employees. Combined with social engineering, they were then able to gain further rights in the system and access the ticketing system.

Potential repercussions

According to Hudson Rock, 24,000 employee data records were also stolen, which could theoretically be misused for further phishing attacks. There is also a risk that cyber criminals could use internal information from the Jira issues to identify vulnerabilities for future attacks.

Telefónica confirmed on Friday that it had been the victim of a cyberattack in which the attackers gained access to the internal ticketing system. The extent of the incident is currently being investigated. The necessary steps to block unauthorized access have already been taken, the company said in an email to the US news portal Bleeping Computer. The German subsidiary Telefónica Deutschland is best known for its core brand O2.

An EU institution also suffers significant data leak

The EU's law enforcement training body, CEPOL, announced in the second week of January that the personal data of around 97,000 people had been compromised in a cyberattack in May 2024. The law enforcement officials affected have already been contacted.

(kst)