Supply chain β›“ Supply Chain

SC Media

πŸ“… 2018-04-05 🏒 Corporation Service Company (CSC)
Primary Source β†—

Incident Details

Corporation Service Company (CSC), a major provider of domain registration, corporate compliance, and agent-for-service-of-process services to Fortune 500 companies and other businesses, disclosed that an unauthorized third party accessed its network and exfiltrated files containing personally identifiable information of 5,678 customers. CSC discovered the intrusion during routine security monitoring and determined on April 5, 2018, that an unknown actor had accessed its network and certain systems, exfiltrating files containing client names, Social Security numbers, and credit or debit card information. The company filed a breach notification with the California Attorney General’s office and began notifying affected customers. In response, CSC took immediate steps to contain the intrusion, contacted law enforcement, and engaged two outside cybersecurity firms to conduct a thorough forensic investigation. The company offered affected customers identity protection and credit monitoring services. The breach was significant because of CSC’s role as a trusted third-party service provider to many of the largest corporations in the United States. CSC acts as a registered agent and handles sensitive corporate filings and domain registrations for a substantial proportion of Fortune 500 companies, meaning a compromise of CSC’s systems could have implications well beyond the 5,678 directly affected customers. The exfiltration of Social Security numbers and payment card data indicated the attacker targeted the most sensitive categories of PII available in CSC’s systems. While the number of directly affected individuals was relatively small, the incident underscored the concentrated risk that third-party corporate service providers represent when they hold sensitive data for large numbers of major organizations.

Technical Details

Initial Attack Vector
Unauthorized network intrusion and data exfiltration from CSC systems
Vendor / Product
Corporation Service Company (CSC)
Supply Chain Attack
βœ… Confirmed third-party / vendor compromise

Timeline

  1. 2018-04-05 Breach occurred
  2. 2018-05-01 Publicly disclosed
  3. 2018-05-01 Customers notified