TCS flags alleged employee data exposure, says customer systems unaffected

TCS said the information referenced appeared to be more than four years old and limited to basic employee information, with no indication that customer data was impacted

India's largest IT services firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said it received threat-intelligence alerts alleging possible breach of certain employee information. Investigations, however, confirmed that there was no credible evidence of a breach of TCS systems or customer environments.

 

“The information referenced appears to be more than four years old and limited to basic employee information. There is no indication that customer data, customer systems, or TCS operational systems have been impacted,” the company said in a filing with the BSE.

 

TCS said the attacker claimed to have used password spraying and multi-factor authentication (MFA) fatigue as the attack vectors. It added that it has had strong safeguards in place against such techniques for more than two years.

 

 

The clarification came after reports started circulating on X that details of employees’ full names, IDs, job titles, phone numbers and addresses were available on well-known hacking forum BreachForums. The hacker claimed the data was pulled directly from TCS's Azure tenant using compromised credentials.

 

“Based on the current review, these controls remain effective, and the company continues to monitor the environment closely.”

 

TCS has been in the midst of controversies relating to cyberattacks. Last year, UK retailer Marks & Spencer suffered a data breach, leading to the theft of its customer data. While initially it was believed to have occurred through a compromise of TCS IT systems, the company later said none of its systems or users were compromised.