An Iran-linked hacker group has claimed responsibility for a cyberattack of a medical tech company, in what appears to be the first significant instance of Iran hacking an American company since the start of war between the countries.
The company, Stryker, produces a range of medical equipment and technology, and is headquartered in Michigan.
Historically, Iran has conducted some of the most infamous “wiper” cyberattacks on national enemies, aiming to simply erase all data on a computer’s networks. Victims include Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, in 2012, and the Sands Casino in 2014.
Since the war started, some established hacker groups sympathetic to Iranian leadership have claimed minor attacks, but most have been relegated to briefly altering the appearance of a website and none have appeared to have had major impact. Some tech and cybersecurity companies, including Google, and the email cybersecurity company Proofpoint, have told NBC News that they have largely seen Iran’s hackers conducting espionage related to the war.
But that appears to have changed Wednesday, with what appears to have been a different type of attack that also deleted information from devices. One Stryker employee, who requested to not be identified because they are not authorized to speak for the company, said that employee’s work issued phones stopped working, dragging work and communications with colleagues to a standstill.
Handala Team has claimed responsibility for the Stryker hack in statements posted to its Telegram and X accounts. The group routinely brags about its exploits on the social media platforms, which have in recent days taken down previous versions of their accounts.
Specifics of how the hack was conducted are not clear. But public evidence of the hack points to the likelihood that hackers gained access to the company’s Microsoft Intune account, which the employee confirmed Stryker uses. From there, Handala appears to have wiped some employee’s devices back to factory settings, one expert said.
“They seem to have obtained access to the Microsoft Intune management console. This is a solution for managing corporate devices,” said Rafe Pilling, the director of threat intelligence at the cybersecurity company Sophos, which has tied Handala to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence agency.
“One of the features is the ability to remotely wipe a device if it’s lost/stolen etc. Looks like they triggered that for some or all of the enrolled devices,” he said.
Microsoft’s website describes the remote wipe feature as “commonly used when a device needs to be retired, repurposed, reset for troubleshooting, or securely erased if lost or stolen.”
In a statement published to its website Wednesday, Stryker said that the disruption was due to a cyberattack, but that its own systems were not directly hacked and that ransomware — a common type of cybercrime that can also significantly disrupt companies’ networks — was not a factor.
“Stryker is experiencing a global network disruption to our Microsoft environment as a result of a cyber attack. We have no indication of ransomware or malware and believe the incident is contained,” the statement said.
The company did not respond to a request for further details. Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment.
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