It’s been a tough Thanksgiving holiday week for dental products distributor Henry Schein Inc., with its ecommerce systems only now back online following a major data breach.
On Oct. 14, Henry Schein Inc. reported a major hack into its core systems, including for distribution and ecommerce. Henry Schein Inc. is a worldwide distributor of medical and dental supplies including vaccines, pharmaceuticals, financial services, and equipment.
The company generated sales of $12.6 billion in 2022. Nearly a month after the hack, it was still bringing its systems back online, CEO Stanley Bergman told analysts on a Nov. 12 earnings call, based on a transcript from SeekingAlpha.
Henry Schein data breach
But on Nov. 22, the company once again announced that its ecommerce systems were down because of ongoing problems related to the data breach, a cyber-attack.
“Certain Henry Schein applications, including its ecommerce platform, are currently unavailable, and the company continues to take orders using alternate means and continues to ship to its customers,” Henry Schein says in an update on its website, HenrySchein.com. “The Company is in the process of securely restoring these applications. Henry Schein has identified the cause of the occurrence. The threat actor from the previously disclosed cyber incident has claimed responsibility.”
The cyber-attack problems hampered HenrySchein.com throughout the long Thanksgiving holiday, with ecommerce systems only being restored yesterday.
“Henry Schein has restored its ecommerce platform in the U.S.,” the company says. “Our ecommerce platforms in Canada and Europe are expected to follow shortly.”
Henry Schein isn’t releasing many details as to who — and what — attacked its data and ecommerce systems. But the trade publication Security Week is reporting that a ransomware group known as Alphv and BlackCat is taking credit for the attack after Henry Schein failed to pay a ransom demand.
The original data breach caused serious disruption to Henry Schein’s ability to process sales, of which about 75% are via digital commerce, the company says.
“If you take EDI [electronic data interchange] plus the web combined, so essentially electronics type of ordering, it’s in the 70% to 75% range,” chief financial officer Ron South told analysts.
The data breach caused Henry Schein to delay filing its full third-quarter earnings report. Henry Schein also expects to file an insurance claim in 2024 related to the data hacking incident.
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