United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) investigates data breach

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has initiated an investigation into an alleged ransomware attack and the subsequent theft of data.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is investigating an alleged ransomware attack that resulted in data theft.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development.

The cyber attack recently targeted the IT infrastructure of the Agency in UN City, Copenhagen.

On March 27, UNDP became aware that a data-extortion threat actor had stolen data, including human resources and procurement information.

“On March 27, UNDP received a threat intelligence notification that a data-extortion actor had stolen data which included certain human resources and procurement information.” reads the statement published by the Agency. “Actions were immediately taken to identify a potential source and contain the affected server as well as to determine the specifics of the exposed data and who was impacted.” 

UNDP is investigating the security incident to determine the scope of the cyberattack. The agency is keeping individuals affected by the breach updated and sharing information with other stakeholders, including its partners across the UN system.

“UNDP takes this incident extremely seriously and we reiterate our dedication to data security. We are committed to continue working to detect and minimize the risk of cyber-attacks.” continues the statement.

UNDP did not share details about the attack, however, on March 27, 2024, the ransomware group 8base added the agency to its Tor leak site (the Tor leak site is unavailable at the time of this writing).

The extortion group as yet to publish the stolen data.

Pierluigi Paganini

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(SecurityAffairs – hacking, United Nations Development Programme)