The tax accounting software and cloud services company, Wolters Kluwer, was victim of a malware attack that begin shutting down access to vast databases of tax return information last week, with downtime stretching on for two days. This interesting information came to us from CNBC in their article, “A malware attack against accounting software giant Wolters Kluwer is causing a ‘quiet panic’ at accounting firms.”
Wolters Kluwer provides software and services to all of the top 100 accounting firms in the U.S., 90% of top global banks and 93% of Fortune 500 companies. While the company did not comment on how many of its customers were impacted by the downtime, it has been described as significant.
A cybersecurity professional at one accounting firm received reassurances from Wolters Kluwer that account information had not been accessed. Malware is any program or file that is harmful to a computer user. Types of malware can include computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses and spyware. These malicious programs can perform a variety of different functions such as stealing, encrypting or deleting sensitive data, altering or hijacking core computing functions and monitoring users’ computer activity without their permission.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
