The German automotive and defence company Rheinmetall has been hit by a malware infection. The malware outbreak has severely disrupted production at factories in Brazil, Mexico and the United States.
The company announced this in a statement on its website. It expects the incident to result in a loss of turnover of between 3 and 4 million euros per week. According to the company, the malware infiltrated its systems last week. It is unclear when the problems will be resolved, although the automotive firm expects to experience disruption from the incident for at least two to four weeks.
The company announces this in a statement on its website. The company expects to suffer a loss of €3 million to €4 million in sales per week due to the incident. The malware nested on its systems last week, according to the company. It is unclear when the problems will be resolved, although the automotive company suspects it will be inconvenienced by the incident for at least two to four weeks.
Rheinmetall Automotive and Rheinmetall Defence
Rheinmetall Group includes Rheinmetall Automotive and Rheinmetall Defence. Rheinmetall Automotive is a manufacturer of automotive components, including pistons, engine blocks and emission management systems. Rheinmetall Defence focuses on providing defence and security technology. The company has production sites worldwide. Besides sites in Brazil, Mexico and the United States, other production sites do not appear to have been affected by the cyber incident, Rheinmetall reports.
"Normal production processes at these locations are currently significantly disrupted," Rheinmetall reported in a statement. Peter Ruecker, a spokesman for Rheinmetall, added in a statement to Reuters news agency: "The IT infrastructure in the region has been taken offline and is currently being rebuilt."
Airbus attacked
Rheinmetall Automotive is not the first company to be hit by a security incident in recent months. Last month, for instance, it was announced that Airbus was attacked through its supply chain. A number of Airbus subcontractors were allegedly targeted, after which the attackers managed to gain access to Airbus' network via the Virtual Private Network (VPN) through which these parties communicate with Airbus. Interestingly, the very purpose of a VPN is to create a secure tunnel over the regular internet and enable secure communication.
Canadian defence company Defence Construction Canada (DCC), which undertakes defence and security infrastructure projects in Canada, was hit by a cyber attack last month. DCC reportedly fell victim to a cyber attack on 11 September, the impact of which is reportedly still being felt. The organisation stresses that projects it carries out for the Canadian Department of National Security are not delayed by the attack.
BASF, Siemens and Henkel were also targeted
In July, German companies BASF, Siemens and Henkel were targeted by cyber attacks. German ARD reported then that the attack used the malware Winnti, which allows attackers to remotely access systems. Analysis of the source code of this malware reportedly showed that a hacker group was behind the attack, presumably operating on behalf of the Chinese government. Pharmaceutical company Roche, hotel chain Marriot, airline Lion Air and chemical companies Shin-Etsu and Covestro, among others, were also reportedly attacked by this group.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: Reuters
Source: Rheinmetall Group
