Okta's shares dropped 8% on Monday following the news that an unknown hacking collective had breached customer records through its support system. The disclosure of the hack on Friday has resulted in the loss of $2 billion market capitalization since then. As a provider of identity management solutions, Okta is a high-profile target for hackers, who have recently been successful in several significant hacks.
Since the disclosure of the hack of its support systems last Friday, Okta has seen its market valuation plummet by over $2 billion. This is the latest in a slew of issues related to Okta and its products, including a series of attacks that shut down Las Vegas hotel rooms for days. Okta's shares nosedived 11% on Friday and closed down 8.1% on Monday. The identity management company, which provides a single login point for major companies through its products, has 18,000 customers, such as Zoom which uses its Google Workspace, ServiceNow, VMware and Workday platforms. Okta said it contacted all of the affected clients, but one of these clients reported that it had informed Okta of the potential breach a few weeks before. Separately, on October 2nd, BeyondTrust informed Okta's security teams of suspicious activity in BeyondTrust's Okta systems, suggesting that Okta had been compromised and multiple clients were probably affected.
Okta has been a part of other high-profile incidents this year, such as the Caesars and MGM hacks in which the former had to pay millions in ransom and the latter had to shut down critical systems, resulting in direct and indirect losses of $100 million. Investigations revealed these attacks centered around their Okta installations, employed by a social engineering attack sent through IT help desks. Additionally, Okta reported that three other companies had been targeted by the same hacking group. Furthermore, Okta's own systems were infiltrated by a separate hacking group named Lapsus$ in March, an organization previously linked to attacks on Uber and Rockstar Games, a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive according to a report from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. CNBC requested comment from Okta, though the company did not immediately respond.
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