Vodafone was the target of a network disruption that began on the night of February 7, 2022, as a result of an intentional and malicious cyberattack targeted at inflicting damage and disruption. As soon as the first indication of a network issue was noticed, Vodafone responded quickly to identify, contain, and restore services. This situation is affecting the provision of services based on data networks, such as 4G/5G networks, fixed voice, television, SMS, and voice/digital answering services.
"We have already recovered mobile voice services and mobile data services are available exclusively on the 3G network almost throughout the country but, unfortunately, the size and severity of the criminal act to which we have been subjected implies for all other services a careful and prolonged recovery work involving multiple national, international teams and external partners," the company said in a statement.
According to Vodafone Portugal CEO Mário Vaz, the attack affected millions of people, businesses, and public services such as ambulance services, fire departments, and hospitals. He stated that emergency services were prioritized in efforts to restore communications. He told reporters that whoever was behind the incident had not demanded a ransom.
"The attack sought to make (Vodafone Portugal) inoperative," he said. He refused to go into detail about the company's and police's inquiry. According to the company, it delivers fiber services to 3.4 million Portuguese homes and businesses, and it has 4.7 million cellphone clients.
Vodafone said it is attempting to restore the remaining services with the assistance of local and international teams in what is presently the company's largest cybersecurity incident. The company also stated that it is cooperating with authorities to investigate the issue and that, based on existing evidence, no customer data appears to have been accessed or compromised. Despite the existence of various claims on the internet, Vodafone Portugal has not linked the ongoing situation to a ransomware attack.
These rumors are currently making the rounds on the internet after a ransomware gang extorted Impresa and Cofina, two of Portugal's leading news media sites, over the past month. The Lapsus$ ransomware group, which was responsible for the two attacks, has not claimed responsibility for the Vodafone Portugal outage on any of its online accounts.
When contacted through LinkedIn, a Vodafone Portugal employee stated that they were only aware of the technical disruption and were unaware of the company's press statement attributing the outage to a hack.
