Enterprise data software company Alation has confirmed it suffered a cyberattack, days after first reporting an incident that disrupted service for some customers. Alation provides natural-language search and AI-driven data tools to more than 500 companies worldwide, including roughly half of the Fortune 1000, making the breach potentially significant given the sensitive corporate data its systems handle. The confirmation adds Alation to a growing list of technology and data-handling firms targeted by hackers in recent weeks.

The company said it had identified "unauthorized activity" in one of its systems and was investigating, but did not disclose how the attackers got in, how many customers were affected, or whether any data was stolen. This followed an earlier incident on Tuesday that caused "degraded availability" for some customers, which Alation said it resolved within an hour; much of its infrastructure runs on Amazon Web Services. The breach comes amid a wider wave of attacks on firms holding large volumes of corporate data, including a recent breach at shipping giant Ceva Logistics and reported targeting of financial and private equity firms.