CGI Federal: Atlassian Confluence Vulnerability Caused GAO Breach

CGI Federal said the data breach that affected the Government Accountability Office was caused by a vulnerability in the Atlassian Confluence suite.

According to Mercedes Marx, a spokesperson for CGI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency singled out the Atlassian Confluence vulnerability in October. The company said it took immediate remediation upon receiving CISA’s warning and worked with its clients to identify and disclose any data affected by the exploitation.

CGI told GAO of the breach in January, stating that the exploitation impacted around 6,000 current and former employees, as well as companies that work with the agency. GAO said it is investigating the matter and will offer services to affected individuals for free, Nextgov/FCW reported Tuesday.

The Atlassian breach is one of several cyberattacks that affected U.S. entities in recent months.

In late June, Congress was informed that the Department of Health and Human Services experienced a data breach due to a vulnerability with Progress Software’s MOVEit file transfer solution. According to an HHS official, hackers exploited the MOVEit vulnerability to access the information of over 100,000 individuals. The MOVEit vulnerability was identified in May 2023 and was immediately patched.

Earlier in June, CISA reported that the Russian ransomware group Clop exploited the MOVEit vulnerability to target various federal agencies and private companies.