On Wednesday, it was reported that Houston-based Halliburton was the victim of a cyber attack that impacted systems at its campus in North Houston. The breach was serious enough that the company asked some employees not to connect to internal networks.
While the company did not reveal the nature of the attack, it said that it was working with “leading external experts” on the problem.
Halliburton is just the latest victim in a string of hacks, breaches and attacks for major U.S. and international companies. The majority of these are ransomware, which locks up company computers with a demand of money in return for the release of systems. Failing to pay could mean loss of data or release of internal documents to the public in many cases.
Ranomware cost companies an estimated $1.1 billion in 2023. That number is expected to grow exponentially by the end of the decade to more than $200 billion annually. Typically, ransomware hackers are smart enough to ask for what companies can afford to pay and rarely are they caught.
As with most cyber attacks, hackers tend to be ahead of the curve, which is why so many cyber crime defense companies often employ former hackers.
There has been no word that Halliburton has suffered a ransomware attack, specifically. There are plenty of different kinds of breaches that happen on a daily basis around the world. Whatever the case may be, the massive Houston company is now part of a growing club of organizations hit by cyber criminals.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
