The iSentia Group Ltd (ASX:ISD) share price is crashing lower today on news of a recent cyber incident. The iSentia share price is trading 29.7% down after the company update this morning. Shares in the company are currently sitting at 13 cents, trading closer to its 52-week low of 10 cents.
What does iSentia do?
iSentia is a media monitoring and analytics provider, with most of its revenue coming from software-as-a-service (SaaS) products. It operates in eight markets across the globe including Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia. The company has been listed on the ASX since 2014.
What happened?
On 27 October, iSentia advised that it was urgently investigating a cyber security incident which was disrupting services within its SaaS platform, Mediaportal.
The impact of this incident on the delivery of services to customers was significant as operations were severely compromised. The hack was contained and iSentia's systems secured thanks to outside cyber security specialists. Furthermore, the majority of mediaportal is now operational and accessible. Some key services do remain affected.
So what?
The cyber attack will immediate impact iSentia's net profit before tax with a decline expected in the range of $7 million to $8.5 million.
The company's transition to a new debt facility with Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) will also be affected as a result of the incident. The transition will be delayed, but the company said it still has its current Westpac facility to draw from.
iSentia's CEO Ed Harrison was optimistic as he said
Although it is difficult to fully assess the impact on FY21 pre-tax earnings, our estimate of $7- 8.5m reflects remediation costs and foregone revenues from services affected by the outage. While this has obviously been a challenging period for the company, I'm incredibly proud of our team who have worked tirelessly to support our customers and investigate the impact on our Mediaportal platform.
Despite his optimisim the iSentia share price remains 29.73% down today.
