July 17 (Reuters) – Colombian state-controlled energy company Ecopetrol said on Friday a cyberattack resulted in the theft of data tied to about 3,300 user accounts and that it could not “guarantee” the breach would not have a “material adverse” financial impact.
The company, however, said it had not identified any critical disruption to its operations, production capacity or any direct financial impact as of Friday, and that no stolen data had yet been disclosed by the hacker.
Ecopetrol is one of Latin America’s largest energy producers and Colombia’s largest company, accounting for more than 60% of the country’s hydrocarbon production.
Ecopetrol said the hacker had not been identified but had communicated extortion demands to the company and threatened to publicly disclose the hacked information.
The data breach affected cloud-based file storage environments of 15 subsidiaries, including Ecopetrol itself, the energy firm said, adding that it was able to prevent an attempted ransomware attack.
The company said it was continuing to assess potential exposure, which could include confidential, proprietary or personal data, and warned the incident could have a material adverse effect on its business, reputation, operating results or financial condition.
(Reporting by Preetika Parashuraman and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Sam Holmes)
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