CGI Federal points finger at Atlassian bug for US government data breach

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A bug in the Atlassian collaboration platform is to blame for this week's US government data breach, affected IT contractor CGI Federal has said.

The incident saw the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reveal over 6,000 current and former employees had been affected as a result of the breach.

Blame it on the buggy

As reported earlier this week, CGI Federal disclosed that it had suffered a data breach at some point during January 2023.

The CGI Federal website states its federal clients, “include nearly every cabinet-level federal agency, military branch, and other federal entities.” A CGI representative recently stated that the company provides its services to “100 participating agencies” while testifying in front of Congress.

In a statement released by CGI Federal, the company said that it was "with authorities and clients to identify and disclose any data affected by the Confluence exploitation." According to the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Atlassian Confluence exploit was discovered in October under the vulnerability ID CVE-2023-22515.

In the statement by CISA on the Network Initial Access exploit, the organization stated that they “strongly encourage network administrators to immediately apply the upgrades provided by Atlassian. CISA, FBI, and MS-ISAC also encourage organizations to hunt for malicious activity on their networks using the detection signatures and indicators of compromise (IOCs) in this CSA.”

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Benedict has been with TechRadar Pro for over two years, and has specialized in writing about cybersecurity, threat intelligence, and B2B security solutions. His coverage explores the critical areas of national security, including state-sponsored threat actors, APT groups, critical infrastructure, and social engineering.

Benedict holds an MA (Distinction) in Security, Intelligence, and Diplomacy from the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, providing him with a strong academic foundation for his reporting on geopolitics, threat intelligence, and cyber-warfare.

Prior to his postgraduate studies, Benedict earned a BA in Politics with Journalism, providing him with the skills to translate complex political and security issues into comprehensible copy.