Halliburton responds to suspected cyber incident, some systems affected

Halliburton is responding to a cyber incident that reportedly disrupted the company's Houston operations.

Halliburton is one of the largest diversified energy services company in the world, with more than 48,000 employees and annual sales of $23 billion.

“We are aware of an issue affecting certain corporate systems and are working diligently to determine the cause and potential impact,” a Halliburton spokesman said Thursday by email.

Reuters reported, Incident as a cyber attack on Wednesday and said some employees had been asked not to connect to internal networks.

The company has activated its response plan and is working both internally and with external experts to resolve the incident, the Halliburton spokesman said.

The Department of Energy is aware of the reported problem, but the nature of the incident is currently unknown, a spokesman for the agency said by email.

“There is currently no indication that the incident has an impact on the energy supply. The Ministry of Energy is coordinating with its partners in the various authorities,” the spokesman said.

The incident underscores the fact that cybersecurity is a fundamental component of public safety and operational resilience, said Chris Grove, director of cybersecurity strategy at Nozomi Networks.

“It underscores the growing vulnerability of our critical infrastructures in an increasingly digitized world,” Grove said via email. “As industries like oil and gas continue to be prime targets for ransomware and state-sponsored attackers, the security landscape is becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated, combined with an expansion of cyber-physical systems attack surfaces.”

Editor's note: This story is developing and will be updated.