The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, D.C., where employees work on business systems. The Post confirmed it had been struck in a significant Oracle software hack. Recently, The Washington Post confirmed it had also been a victim of a hack on Oracle’s E-Business Suite. This is a subset of a broader attack on Oracle’s corporate software suite, conducted by the Clop (CL0P) ransomware gang. In essence, the attack saw Clop use newly identified flaws in Oracle’s business systems to breach dozens of organizations. In fact, it is expected that well over 100 organizations have been struck. The confirmed attacks include those on Harvard University as well as Envoy, a subsidiary of American Airlines.
Key Details
- The Washington Post has confirmed it was a victim in the Oracle E-Business Suite breach.
- The Clop ransomware gang has used a number of Oracle flaws to steal data from enterprises.
- It is estimated that 100+ organizations were affected, including Harvard University and Envoy.
- The extortion campaign kicked off in late September 2025, as executives started receiving ransom emails, with one firm being asked a $50 million ransom.
- Clop publicly intimidated his victims by naming them on his posts, including taunts, such as “The Post ignored their security.”
Oracle E-Business Suite Breach Explained
The tech researchers trace the attack to mid-2025. In August 2025, the Clop gang launched attacks on Oracle’s E-Business Suite, exploiting a critical zero-day vulnerability known as CVE-2025-61882. Just a month later, corporate executives saw suspicious extortion messages about huge thefts. Oracle, therefore, released an urgent advisory on Oct. 2 and 4 to patch the vulnerabilities. The Google security team, however, observed the hackers scanning Oracle environments as early as July 2025. In essence, the hackers gained entry into organizations’ software systems unpatched. Thus, the hackers were able to steal huge amounts of information silently. For example, Google indicated that Clop stole business and employee data from over 100 organizations. The attacks enabled the gang to extort huge sums of money; one executive was asked to pay a total of $50 million to prevent the data from being released.
Cl0p Data Extortion
The Clop gang, alias “Cl0p,” is infamous for data extortion instead of common ransomware cryptographic attacks. In the Oracle attack, Clop gained entry into organizations’ systems, stealing valuable data surreptitiously, followed by extortion mails. Once inside the Oracle E-Business Suite, the attackers also showed off proof of their attack, featuring actual directory listings. For example, on their dark web page, Cl0p posted about their attack on The Washington Post, bashing it for poor security. The goal of this “shaming” approach is to intimidate companies into making payments. Unlike the common objective of ransomware attacks, those from the Cl0p gang accomplish their attack without initial cryptographic threats. It took the gang months to make demands, which were substantial. The Halcyon security organization observed a CIO being asked to provide $50 million to avoid leaking the stolen data. In response, organizations withholding payments have their name-lists along with their “secrets” shared publicly.
Other Major Victims and Industry Impact
Google has warned over 100 organizations about the theft of their data, believed to be stolen in a campaign orchestrated by the Clop gang. Known victims include Harvard University, targeted in the education sector, as well as Envoy, attacked in the air transport sector.
Oracle’s Response and Security Measures
Oracle has not commented much on this matter, other than advising on where to find information on the subject in their security bulletins. In regard to Oracle’s response to the breach, a spokesperson for Oracle referred the media to the notifications released in early October. These notifications included the use of emergency patches for the EBS vulnerabilities utilized in attacks. In point of fact, Oracle released a critical patch on Oct. In addition, affected organizations are undertaking a review of their environment, specifically looking for any malicious traffic. Based on this event, many organizations are looking back into their environment to determine how attacks have been initiated. Others in the security community are analyzing the tools available for use in attacks initiated by ‘Clop.’
Zero-Dwell: Stop Threats Before They Strike
The Washington Post breach proves one thing — waiting to detect is already too late. Traditional security tools react after an attack starts. Xcitium’s Zero-Dwell Containment stops it the moment it appears. Every unknown or untrusted file is instantly isolated in a secure virtual environment — allowed to run, tested, even misbehave — without ever touching real systems or data.
If malware tries to act, it’s contained and neutralized instantly. The result? No breach. No data stolen. No downtime. We call it Zero-Dwell — because there’s zero delay, zero damage, and zero opportunity for threats to strike.
