An Iran-linked hacker group has claimed responsibility for launching a debilitating cyberattack against a US medical company Wednesday — marking the first such hacking since the war between the nations began.
The attack targeted Stryker, a Michigan-based medical equipment company, and caused a “global network disruption” to their Microsoft apps, the company said in a statement.
“We have no indication of ransomware or malware and believe the incident is contained. Our teams are working rapidly to understand the impact of the attack on our systems,” Stryker wrote.
The logo of the Iran-linked hacking group Handala was blasted across company login pages during the cyberattack, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Handala Team later claimed responsibility for the Stryker hacking in a statement on X and Telegram.
The group wrote that they had seized 50 terabytes of “critical data” from the medical giant and that “all the data is in the hands of the free people,” in retaliation for the killing of at least 175 schoolgirls in Minab during US-Israel military-led strikes on Iran.
The “hacktivist” group emerged in 2022 and has been linked to Iran by several threat intelligence companies, the Journal reported. The group had claimed responsibility for additional recent cyberattacks on Israeli companies and in the Gulf.
A Stryker employee told NBC News that the disruption stopped work-issued phones from functioning and effectively halted operations at the 56,000-employee company.
The attack also appeared to have wiped information from some employees’ devices, the outlet said.
In a message sent to employees and obtained by the Journal, Stryker advised workers to avoid clicking on suspicious links and urged them to remove mobile device management apps and work profiles from their cellphones.
“The issue is widespread and significantly affecting users’ ability to access systems and services,” the notice said, according to the outlet.
It is not immediately clear how the cyberattack was conducted or whether Handala’s claims that it had acquired data are accurate.
Neither Stryker nor Microsoft immediately responded to The Post’s request for comment on further details.
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