Medical equipment maker Stryker was allegedly hit with an Iran-linked cyberattack on Wednesday, right after midnight ET, causing a global outage across its system. Staff and contractors said a logo of an Iran-linked group appeared on the login page, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.
“Stryker is experiencing a global network disruption to our Microsoft environment as a result of a cyberattack,” the company confirmed to Fast Company on Wednesday afternoon. “We have no indication of ransomware or malware and believe the incident is contained. Our teams are working rapidly to understand the impact of the attack on our systems.”
A Stryker Corp. spokesperson added that the company “has business continuity measures in place to continue to support our customers and partners.”
Shares of the Michigan-based global medical technology company (NYSE: SYK) were down nearly 4% in early afternoon trading on Wednesday at the time of this writing.
What happened?
According to the WSJ report, staff members said cellphones, laptops, and other devices that run on Microsoft’s Windows operating system to connect to Stryker’s technology systems had been wiped.
The logo, which allegedly appeared on login pages, was for Handala, a pro-Iran and pro-Palestinian hacking group, the WSJ article reported.
On one Reddit thread, a user posted: “My wife had 3 Stryker-managed devices wiped around 3:30 AM EDT. Their Entra login page was defaced with the Handala logo; it’s still up as of this post.” On that same thread, another user replied: “Yep! Woke up to wiped computer and phone, low key thought they finally fired me. lol.”
Handala was also behind a breach of the Academy of the Hebrew Language’s website on Wednesday, according to The Jerusalem Post, which reported that the group posted the message: “There is no need to learn Hebrew anymore. You won’t need it for much longer.”
Stryker has offices in the U.S. and in the Middle Eastern countries of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Both countries have been targeted by Tehran as it retaliates against U.S.-Israeli strikes in the war with Iran. That war is in its 12th day.
What is Stryker Corp.?
Stryker is one of the world’s leading medical technology (medtech) companies. It develops medical, surgical, and neurotechnology products and services that impact more than 150 million patients a year.
The company was founded in 1941 by orthopedic surgeon Dr. Homer Stryker in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where it is still based. The company has U.S. offices in Michigan, Minnesota, California, and internationally.
Stryker financials
Stryker reported strong fourth-quarter earnings for 2025, beating expectations with adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $4.47, versus an expected $4.39; and revenue of $7.2 billion, beating analyst expectations of $7.12 billion.
This story has been updated with a statement from Stryker Corp.