[German]The automotive division of German company Rheinmetall (Düsseldorf) has been the victim of a cyber or hacker attack. The company's production facilities in Brazil, Mexico and the USA were disrupted. The company does not know how long the plants cannot work properly now. Airbus was also attacked and the Hannover Medical University is also suffering from a ransomware attack.
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Hacker attack on Rheinmetall Automotive
Rheinmetall Automotive is currently battling the effects of a cyber attack. It looks as if the production is affected worldwide. Rheinmetall made an Ad-Hoc announcement about the incident on September 26, 2019.
(Quelle: Pexels Josh Sorenson)
According to the company, the successful hacker attack on the German defence and automotive supplier Rheinmetall AG has severely impaired production in North and South America. Since late Tuesday evening (September 24, 2019), the IT infrastructure of the automotive supplier division in its plants in Brazil, Mexico and the USA has been affected by a malware attack.
Currently Rheinmetall still has the option of delivering finished products from stock to its customers in the automotive industry. However, the situation becomes difficult when inventories run low and can no longer be replenished due to production stoppages.
According to the Group, no statements could be made about the duration of the disruption. Rheinmetall estimates that in "the most probable scenarios, this production disruption could last between two and four weeks". Should the disruptions last longer than two weeks, the company anticipates a negative impact on earnings of three to four million euros per week. However, Rheinmetall remains silent about the details. In the title I have indicated a hacker attack – but on the basis of the statement 'failure of two to four weeks' we can assume a successful ransomware attack in which files were encrypted.
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More cyber attacks last days
It's has been a hot week in terms of cyber attacks. There are reports of hacker attacks at Airbus, where the attackers are deliberately targeting the company's contractors to disrupt business processes. The following tweet states that Defence Construction Canada, as well as Rheinmetall, is fighting a cyber attack earlier this month.
Malware-based attacks disrupted operations of Rheinmetall AG and Defence Construction Canada https://t.co/ec5jLGMKCb #cybersecurity pic.twitter.com/5mf2A6fQ8k
— Angelo G Longo (@aglongo) September 28, 2019
And in my German article Emotet-Infektion an Medizinischer Hochschule Hannover I reported yesterday about a Ransomware infection at the aforementioned institution. The only positive news within this area is, that German police has seized a darknet server farm, as I reported within the blog post German police seized a darknet server farm in a shelter.
