Hacker group Handala claimed responsibility for attack that caused ‘global disruption’ to Stryker Corporation’s systems
An Iran-linked group said it hacked a US medical company, causing “global disruption” to its systems, in retaliation for the bombing of the Minab school in Iran, in an attack seen as widening the Middle East into the cyber realm.
Handala, a hacker group, claimed responsibility for the attack on Wednesday on the Stryker Corporation, which makes medical devices and is based in Michigan. It affected thousands of employees using the company’s Microsoft systems.
In a statement, Stryker said the attack is expected to continue to cause “disruptions and limitations of access to certain of the Company’s information systems and business applications” and warned: “the timeline for a full restoration is not yet known”.
Stryker’s share price dropped about 3% on news of the attack. Lee Sult, chief investigator at cybersecurity firm, Binalyze, called it “the first drop of blood in the water” as the Iran conflict spreads to US cyber targets and predicted “more shots are coming”. The same hacker group has already attacked Israeli cyber targets as Iran attempts to inflict economic disruption on its adversaries.
