IT break-in at telecom group Orange

On Thursday, Orange subsidiary Orange Cyberdefense announced the acquisition of Swiss competitor Ensec; one day later, Orange noticed a successful IT attack on its own infrastructure. In response, the French telecom group has isolated infected areas, causing disruption to "certain management services and platforms for some of our business customers as well as some services for consumers, mainly in France".

This was announced by Orange on Monday. The company also filed a complaint that day. All systems should be back up and running by Wednesday morning. "At this stage of the investigation, there is no evidence to suggest that any internal data or customer data has been leaked," the company added.

For supposedly "obvious" reasons, Orange refuses to comment further. It therefore remains unclear whether Orange even had systems that would notice the data leakage and sound the alarm. Nor can other companies learn from Orange's mistakes, which may be an advantage for the perpetrators.

Acquisition in Switzerland

Orange Cyberdefense has been active in Switzerland since 2022, offering proactive security solutions in particular. On July 23, the company acquired the Zurich-based provider Ensec with 40 IT security experts. They will now join the approximately 100 Swiss IT employees of Orange Cyberdefense.

According to the press release, this is intended to strengthen the company's market position in German-speaking Switzerland. The parties involved are not disclosing the financial details of the takeover.

Orange is one of the largest telecoms groups in the world. As of December 2024, 127,000 employees served 291 million customers in 26 countries.

(ds)