Goldman-linked EY breach highlights new era of undetectable data theft

A recent breach at the Big Four accounting firm, EY, has exposed sensitive corporate data, highlighting a new era of undetectable data theft, according to Darktrace. Senior Vice President Nathaniel Jones warned that attackers can now hide among legitimate activity on everyday workplace software such as document-sharing platforms.

The breach occurred when an unauthorized third party accessed EY's platform between March 28 and April 12, downloading documents containing names, addresses, email addresses, tax identification numbers, and financial information linked to multiple EY clients. EY did not detect the unusual activity until April 23, 11 days after the last unauthorized access.

The company stated that the breach did not impact its broader enterprise systems or pose a threat to ongoing business. Traditional cyber defenses are often ineffective against such attacks as they focus on detecting malware or known malicious infrastructure. Jones advises that the bigger vulnerability lies in the data inside third-party and cloud software.

Once sensitive information is uploaded to a supplier's platform, it can quickly move beyond the controls and monitoring that protect it inside a company. This makes seemingly unremarkable software increasingly attractive to hackers. Goldman Sachs confirmed that its systems were not compromised and is working with EY to support any impacted clients. Man Group also stated that the incident was independent of its systems, which were not compromised.