Conduent Confirms Cybersecurity Breach Disrupted U.S. Child Support Payments, Impacting Millions
January 22, 2025Customers relying on electronic payments or EBT card transactions faced significant issues due to the outage.
Despite the incident, Conduent has not disclosed the number of affected customers, whether any customer data was stolen, or if a ransom demand was made.
Collins also noted that the nature of the cybersecurity incident remains unconfirmed, and the company has not ruled out the possibility of a cyberattack.
Notably, the company has not issued a public statement or filed an 8-K report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding this breach.
Conduent supports approximately 100 million U.S. residents through various government health programs, making the implications of such incidents particularly significant.
Conduent, a prominent U.S. government contractor that provides technology for essential support services like child support and food assistance, confirmed that a recent outage was due to a cybersecurity incident.
The company acknowledged that the service interruption occurred on January 20, 2025, affecting payment processes for the Wisconsin Support Collections Trust Fund.
This outage had a widespread impact, disrupting operations across multiple U.S. states and affecting organizations such as the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families and Oklahoma Human Services.
Conduent spokesperson Sean Collins stated that the incident was contained and all systems have since been restored, highlighting the importance of system integrity to their clients.
After restoring systems, Conduent publicly revealed on January 21, 2025, that the disruption was indeed caused by a cybersecurity incident.
The disruption left some U.S. residents unable to access their support payments, raising concerns about the incident's broader impact.
This incident follows a previous Maze ransomware attack on Conduent four years ago, which was initially described as a service interruption.
Summary based on 2 sources
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Sources
TechCrunch • Jan 22, 2025
Conduent confirms outage was due to a cybersecurity incident | TechCrunchBleepingComputer • Jan 22, 2025
Conduent confirms cybersecurity incident behind recent outage