The exhaust manufacturer fell victim to a cyber attack. The IT systems and telephone connections are impaired.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf The Baden-Württemberg auto supplier Eberspächer fell victim to a hacker attack. The website of the exhaust manufacturer from Esslingen has not been accessible since Monday evening. Only a statement from the company is displayed. “The Eberspächer Group was the target of an organized cyber attack. The IT infrastructure is impaired, ”it says there. The “Automobilwoche” reported on it first.
The company’s own IT specialists are currently working on countermeasures together with external cyber security experts, according to the supplier’s homepage. Last year, Eberspächer had a turnover of around six billion euros.
The company did not provide any further details about the attack. However, it is likely to be a serious attack because the telephone connections also seem to have been cut. It was not possible to contact Eberspächer by phone on Tuesday afternoon, neither by mobile phone nor via the landline network.
Another cyber attack hits a German family company in the form of Eberspächer. Almost exactly two years ago, hackers attacked the medium-sized automation and security specialist Pilz, which, like Eberspächer, has its headquarters in Esslingen. At that time, Pilz had all computer systems disconnected from the network as a precaution. The website was inaccessible for days.
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Pilz fell victim to a so-called ransomware attack. Hackers encrypt a company’s IT systems and sometimes demand ransom money worth millions for the activation. In the end, Pilz did not pay the ransom. To do this, the medium-sized company had to set up its IT systems again – that took more than a year.
The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has been warning of the increase in hacker attacks on companies for a long time. “The past year was marked by a significant expansion of cybercriminal extortion methods,” warned the BSI last Thursday. In the 2020 annual report, the authority describes digital blackmail as the “greatest threat” to cybersecurity in Germany.
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