- An IKEA -Franchise company suffered a ransomware -attack
- The incident costs Fourlis Group Millions thanks to operational disturbance
- Ransomware is rising steadily in popularity
An attack on IKEA franchise company Fourlis Group cost the company over 15 million euros ($ 17 million), it has revealed.
Cyber criminals violated the company’s systems just two days before Black Friday 2024, one of the largest trading days of the year – affecting Fourlis Group assets in Romania, Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria.
At the time of the attack, it was not clear which parts of Fourlis were affected, but it has now been revealed that online IKEA stores and customer management system were disturbed. It is said that the hacker’s intrusion has lasted over two weeks, creating “serious gaps in a critical commercial period,” reported local media (translated, originally in Greek).
A qualitative burden
Vasilis Fourlis, the group’s chairman of the board, confirmed that there was no doubt that there was also a qualitative burden “and that the company is making” a huge effort to reverse the situation “.
Affected systems were recovered very quickly without any personal data leaking and without payment of a ransom added it, noting further attacks targeting the company, but was successfully deflected.
Ransomware -attacks increased by 2024, and the retail industry was a top target as the downtime of these organizations is seriously expensive and they tend to have large amounts of personally identifiable information on their customers, such as names, e -mail addresses, shipping addresses and payment information -all of which can be utilized or sold on the dark web.
It is not clear what the first entry point was in this attack, but thanks to the increase in AI, Cyberattacks are now much more accessible to criminals who can use the technology to send more sophisticated attacks to a higher rate than ever before.
The Fourlis Group has reportedly invested a million euros in digital infrastructure and has transferred some IT systems and cyber security capabilities internally after the incident.
Via Capital.gr (translated, originally in Greek)
