reuters.com - Bleach maker Clorox said Tuesday that it has sued information technology provider Cognizant over a devastating 2023 cyberattack, alleging the hackers gained access by asking the tech company's staff for its employees' passwords.

WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) - Bleach maker Clorox (CLX.N), opens new tab said Tuesday that it has sued information technology provider Cognizant (CTSH.O), opens new tab over a devastating 2023 cyberattack, alleging the hackers gained access by asking the tech company's staff for its employees' passwords.
Clorox was one of several major companies hit in August 2023 by the hacking group dubbed Scattered Spider, which specializes in tricking IT help desks into handing over credentials and then using that access to lock them up for ransom.

The group is often described as unusually sophisticated and persistent, but in a case filed in California state court on Tuesday, Clorox said one of Scattered Spider's hackers was able to repeatedly steal employees' passwords simply by asking for them.
"Cognizant was not duped by any elaborate ploy or sophisticated hacking techniques," according to a copy of the lawsuit, opens new tab reviewed by Reuters. "The cybercriminal just called the Cognizant Service Desk, asked for credentials to access Clorox's network, and Cognizant handed the credentials right over."
Cognizant, in an emailed statement, pushed back, saying it did not manage cybersecurity for Clorox and it was only hired for limited help desk services.

The US government is suing TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance over “widespread” privacy violations that it illegally collects data on kids 13 and under.

CrowdStrike (CRWD.O), opens new tab has been sued by shareholders who said the cybersecurity company defrauded them by concealing how its inadequate software testing could cause the July 19 global outage that crashed more than 8 million computers.
In a proposed class action filed on Tuesday night in the Austin, Texas federal court, shareholders said they learned that CrowdStrike's assurances about its technology were materially false and misleading when a flawed software update disrupted airlines, banks, hospitals and emergency lines around the world.

Millions of articles from The New York Times were used to train chatbots that now compete with it, the lawsuit said.