Danish wind turbine giant Vestas Wind Systems has been hit by what appears to be a ransomware attack that took out parts of its internal IT infrastructure and caused unspecified data compromise.
Vestas, which employs 25,000 at manufacturing plants all over the world, said it discovered a “cyber security incident” on Friday, November 19, and immediately shut down its IT systems across multiple business units and locations.
In an initial statement fessing up to the breach, Vestas said customers, employees and other stakeholders may be affected by the shutdown of several of its IT systems.
An updated statement released Monday confirmed the compromise of data. “The company’s preliminary findings indicate that the incident has impacted parts of Vestas’ internal IT infrastructure and that data has been compromised. At this stage, the work and investigation are still ongoing.”
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Vestas said there was no indication that the incident has impacted third party operations, including customer and supply chain operations.
“Vestas’ manufacturing, construction and service teams have been able to continue operations, although several operational IT systems have been shut down as a precaution. Vestas has already initiated a gradual and controlled reopening of all IT systems,” the company said.
The incident has all the hallmarks of a ransomware attack where a company’s data is hijacked and encrypted and used to extort millions of dollars from victim organizations.
Vestas isn’t the first Danish multinational organization to suffer a major cyber attack. In 2017, container shipping behemoth Maersk was hit by a cyberattack that shut down its systems and ran up recovery costs in the hundreds of millions.
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Ryan Naraine is Editor-at-Large at SecurityWeek and host of the popular Security Conversations podcast series. He is a security community engagement expert who has built programs at major global brands, including Intel Corp., Bishop Fox and GReAT. Ryan is a founding-director of the Security Tinkerers non-profit, an advisor to early-stage entrepreneurs, and a regular speaker at security conferences around the world.
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