Disruptions at Conduent linked to third-party breach

Major U.S. government IT contractor Conduent — which supports several states' Medicaid, food assistance, and child support programs — has confirmed having one of its operating systems subjected to a third-party breach, which prompted the days-long disruption of many of its operations, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

"This compromise was quickly contained and our technology environment is currently considered to be free of known malicious activity as confirmed by our third-party security experts," said a Conduent spokesperson, who did not confirm whether the intrusion involved ransomware or data exfiltration. Conduent's disclosure comes after the outage was reported last week by the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, which noted the incident to have impacted three other states before issuing another update regarding systems restoration on Sunday. Conduent, which recently secured a $92 million deal to advance Alaska's Medicaid Management Information System, was last compromised in a ransomware intrusion five years ago, according to cybersecurity expert Kevin Beaumont.