Cyberattack compromises German industrial giant ThyssenKrupp

German multinational industrial engineering and steel production giant ThyssenKrupp AG has suffered a cyberattack that compromised its Materials Services division and corporate headquarters.

According to a spokesperson, Thyssenkrupp is currently the target of a cyberattack that is probably being carried out by organized crime. As of right now, no harm has been done, and there are no signs that any data has been stolen or altered.

Even though ThyssenKrupp did not specify the attack’s nature, the company’s cybersecurity team quickly identified and stopped the intrusion, according to a company spokesperson. There is no evidence of any damage, data theft, or modification resulting from it.

The spokesperson further stated that other business divisions were unaffected by the attack. No organized group of cyber terrorists has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. An obvious candidate, given the mention of restricting the attack, would be ransomware, but until more information is given, that is just conjecture, according to reports.

Notably, ThyssenKrupp has previously been a target of cyberattacks. A second “heavy” and “exceptional quality” cyberattack directed at the company occurred in 2012. ThyssenKrupp was the target of alleged Asian threat actors in 2016 who wanted to steal trade secrets. The investigators conjectured that a team of expert hackers operating out of Southeast Asia was responsible for the attack and were drawn to the company’s technological know-how and research endeavors.

The U.S. and Canadian-based ThyssenKrupp Materials group of companies was compromised on December 28, 2020, by the NetWalker ransomware group. The hackers were able to gain access to private HR data and records about both current and former employees of the business. ThyssenKrupp System Engineering was affected by the Mount Locker ransomware group in August 2020. A ThyssenKrupp subsidiary’s servers and employee workstations were encrypted in January 2021 due to a ransomware cyberattack.