What happened
Shares of the cybersecurity company Okta (OKTA 1.44%) tumbled nearly every day this week after new information about a hack of the company's platform, that occurred two months ago, emerged.
The tech company issued several statements throughout the week, but none of them appeared to ease investors' fears. As of this afternoon, Okta's stock had fallen 21% since last Friday, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
So what
Earlier this week it was reported that the Lapsus ransomware group (also known as Lapsus$) had hacked into Okta's cybersecurity system back in January. The hackers posted screenshots online to seemingly show that they had access to some parts of Okta's system.
Image source: Getty Images.
Okta released a short statement saying that this matter was investigated back in January and the screenshots were from that event. The company went on to say "there is no evidence of ongoing malicious activity beyond the activity detected in January."
But things got worse for Okta a few days later when it issued another statement about the hack, saying that 366 of its customers -- about 2.5% -- were potentially impacted by the incident.
To make matters worse, Okta also said that it took about a month for it to receive a full report on the incident.
Okta's chief security officer, David Bradbury, wrote in an official company blog post that he was "greatly disappointed by the long period of time that transpired" between the notification of the incident and the complete investigation.
Now what
Investors didn't like the news of Okta's breach, nor did they seem to like how the company handled talking about it. Analysts were also disappointed, and Okta's stock received two downgrades -- from Raymond James and Truist -- over the past couple of days.
With the company's lackluster initial response to the breach and its stock receiving two downgrades over the past couple of days, it's no surprise to see Okta's share price fall so hard this week.
