Pierluigi Paganini
December 09, 2016
Hackers from Southeast Asia targeted the German heavy industry giant ThyssenKrupp in the attempt of obtaining “technological know-how and research results.”
The news was announced on Thursday by a company spokesman that confirmed a report in the Wirschaftswoche weekly and added that the company as successfully repelled the attack.
The cyber attack was discovered by the IT security office, which spotted the hacking activities while they were ongoing and blocked them.
“The attack is over and had been repelled,” said the company spokesman.
The investigators speculate the attack was carried out by a group of professional hackers from Southeast Asia that is interested in the technological know-how and research activities of the company.
At the time I was writing there are no further details of the cyber attack nor the exact nature of the attackers (i.e. nation-state actors, cybercriminals).
The hackers launched a “massive cyber attack” against the divisions dealing with orders planning of industrial plants, the conglomerate’s Industrial Solutions, and Steel Europe business divisions.
Critical IT systems at the ThyssenKrupp such as the Marine Systems business unit and blast furnaces and power plants in Duisburg, were not affected
The ThyssenKrupp Marine should be a privileged target for hackers because it is the division that builds warships, including submarines for the German and Israeli navies.
The company excluded any sabotage or manipulation of data or applications, but it was unable to estimate if a limited portion of data, “data fragments,” had been stolen by the hackers.
“Experts say that in the complex IT landscapes of large companies, it is currently virtually impossible to provide viable protection against organized, highly professional hacking attacks,” the company added.
Stay tuned.
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(SecurityAffairs – ThyssenKrupp, hacking)
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