The Fortescue Metals Group Limited (ASX: FMG) share price finished higher on Tuesday despite news of a breach coming to light today.
At the final bell, shares in the iron ore giant stood at $22.71, rising 1% during the session — a more impressive performance given the lacklustre showing among the materials sector.
Word of Fortescue being targeted by hackers wielded no damage to investor sentiment today. The development marks the latest in a string of events in an eventful past week.
Hacked, but not worried
Following a post on the Dark Web, news sources learned that the Russian ransomware gang CIOp had breached Fortescue’s systems. Exploiting a vulnerability in the popular MOVEit file transfer software, the gang made off with the customer data of the Australian iron ore miner.
Hidden by the cloak of anonymity that the Dark Web affords, CIOp said Fortescue “doesn’t care about its customers” and that the company “ignored [its] security”. The group states it is purely motivated by financial gain, demanding those that are hacked to negotiate payment within seven days.
Fortescue is not the first, and undoubtedly not the last, to be stung by CIOp. In June, the criminal organisation hacked multinational oil and gas company Shell’s employee and customer data. Closer to home, the Tasmanian government also suffered at the hands of the group back in April this year.
One might expect the Fortescue share price to react negatively amid the news. However, a Fortescue spokesperson specified the breach occurred on 28 May 2023.
Additionally, it was described as a “low impact cyber incident”. The information accessed by CIOp is not believed to be confidential.
Further calming any nerves, the spokesperson stated, “Our internal investigation and remediation actions are now complete.” This would suggest the case has already been closed on this cyber incident.
External noise for the Fortescue share price
Despite recent events, shares in the Australian iron ore miner have remained resilient, lifting 1.25% since the first headline-making development. This involved the jointly announced separation between Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest and his wife Nicola Forrest.
The Fortescue founder also faced an internal investigation, cleared of wrongdoing on Monday.
More importantly, the iron ore price has risen to US$115.50 per tonne from US$109 throughout the events.
