Boat Building Giant Beneteau Says Cyberattack Disrupted Production

French boat maker Groupe Beneteau is working on restoring operations after falling victim to a cyber-attack roughly ten days ago.

Founded in 1884, the Vendée, France-based company employs more than 8,000 people in France, the United States, Poland, Italy and China, and focuses on two business lines: boats and leisure homes.

Last week, Beneteau announced that it suffered a malware intrusion on some of its servers, and that it decided to disconnect all “information systems,” to prevent the malware from spreading.

“Several production units, notably in France, will have to slow down or stop their production activities for a few days,” the company said a few days after the attack.

The boat builder has immediately started recovery operations, which include “the deployment of a backup application and systems,” to help it restore activities securely, albeit in “degraded mode.”

The company also revealed that it contacted the relevant authorities and that the investigation into the incident would continue, while its teams will focus on restoring all systems. One week later, however, the giant was still struggling with the recovery operations.

In an update published on Thursday, Beneteau said production at some of its plants was expected to gradually recommence on February 26. However, the company did not provide information on when all of its systems would be fully operational again.

“The Group is continuing with its investigations in order to find solutions to restore its IT systems to a normal and secure way of operating,” the company also said.

While Beneteau did not share information on the malware it was targeted with, the attack appears to bear the marks of a ransomware assault. SecurityWeek reached out to the company for confirmation on this and to inquire whether any data was compromised during the incident.

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