US government data breach linked to Atlassian bug

A US government data breach disclosed earlier this year was tied to a bug in enterprise software maker Atlassian’s Confluence suite of collaboration tools, an IT contractor said.

CGI Federal, an IT contractor and unit of CGI, said in a statement that it was working “with authorities and clients to identify and disclose any data affected by the Confluence exploitation,” which was made public back in October.

Reuters has been unable to determine the size and scope of the breach.

On Monday, the US Government Accountability Office told Reuters that 6000 current and former GAO employees had been victims of a data breach by an unnamed “threat actor” in connection with the hack.

Whether any other government agencies have been affected has not been publicly disclosed.

Atlassian did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The US cyber watchdog agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, did not immediately return an email.

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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