Cyber Incident Victim: ADG Global Supply
Date:
Oct 2020
Location:
Australia
Summary
Isentia disclosed a major security incident that disrupted its SaaS Mediaportal platform and other online services, with indications pointing to a ransomware attack. The company said it is taking urgent steps to contain the breach, conducting a full investigation, and working with leading external cybersecurity specialists while keeping customers informed through interim support processes. Many of its clients, including federal government agencies and private‑sector organizations, experienced service interruptions, prompting the company to notify the Australian Cyber Security Centre and emphasize the need for third‑party cyber‑resilience vetting.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 1 technique |
| Threat Actors | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 0 actors | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
Isentia is a media monitoring company headquartered in Sydney that operates in eight markets around the world. On October 27, 2020, the firm submitted a regulatory filing to the Australian Securities Exchange announcing that it was dealing with a major security incident. The filing indicated that the incident was disrupting some of the company’s online services, specifically affecting its SaaS Mediaportal platform. Although the filing did not explicitly name ransomware, contemporaneous reports suggested that ransomware was the suspected cause of the disruption.
In the filing, Isentia’s chief executive officer, Ed Harrison, stated that the company was taking urgent steps to contain the incident. He added that Isentia would conduct a full investigation to determine what had happened and how to prevent a similar occurrence in the future. Harrison said the firm’s priority was to restore full service as soon as possible. To assist customers during the outage, the company had put processes in place to support them while restoration efforts continued.
The outage affected a broad range of Isentia’s customers, including federal government agencies and private‑sector organizations that rely on its media monitoring services. Steve Forbes, a government cybersecurity expert at Nominet, commented that the attack highlighted the interconnected nature of national cyber‑defense. He noted that although a media monitoring firm is not usually regarded as critical infrastructure, its work with many government departments and large organizations had been put on hold because of the cyber‑attack. Forbes also said that the incident underscored the importance of vetting third parties for cyber‑resilience and that, while the full details of the breach were still emerging, best practice advice was to ensure third parties maintain at least similar security practices as their own to protect sensitive data.
Isentia notified the Australian Cyber Security Center about the incident and said it was working with leading external cybersecurity specialists to determine the extent of the breach and its impact on key systems. The company acknowledged that it appeared to have been caught off‑guard by the attack and that it was still struggling to contain the incident. While working with specialists, Isentia continued to monitor the situation and to provide updates to affected customers as restoration progressed. The firm maintained that its immediate focus remained on containment, investigation, and the eventual return of normal service across its platforms.