Essendant provided an update on its ongoing investigation into the network outage it experienced on 6 March.
Immediately upon discovering the incident, Essendant took systems offline to contain the incident, initiated an investigation, and engaged third party forensics and cybersecurity experts to assist in its remediation and investigative efforts.
Essendant said: “We are in contact with law enforcement about the incident and are cooperating with their investigation.
“The incident was limited to Essendant’s network, and disrupted certain systems and operations for customers, suppliers, carriers, and our associates. Our investigation has determined that the outage was the result of a ransomware incident.”
The company explained that an unauthorised actor has publicly claimed responsibility for this incident. “We are continuing to investigate the validity of these claims,” the company added.
Enterprise teams and partners are continually reviewing all security tools and making recommendations to confirm that all operations are secure.
Essendant concluded: “Additionally, with respect to our restoration efforts, we successfully completed the clean-up on in-process orders, tested and brought priority systems back online, opened up customer ordering and Customer Care support and started limited pick, pack, and ship operations by 20 March 2023.”
