Plasma donation company Octopharma says cyber attack disrupted its U.S. operations

Swiss plasma donation company Octapharma Plasma said it experienced a data security incident that forced it to take operational systems offline in the USA.

 

In a press release, the Switzerland-headquartered company said that on April 17, its US division identified suspicious activity in its internal network. The company immediately launched an internal investigation to determine the nature and scope of the incident and activated incident response processes, including taking its systems offline, to contain the spread of the attack.

 

While the company did not share details on the data security incident, it assured its clients that the plasma donation centres in Germany and its European production sites were not affected by the incident.

 

However, a source told The Register that if the company does not restore affected systems in the US, it “will need to close factories in Europe as more than 75 percent of their plasma comes from the US.”

 

Octapharma initially said that all centres would be closed between April 17 to April 22. Currently, according to a banner on the company’s website, “all centres are now open, but may have modified hours and slight delays.”

 

The BlackSuit ransomware group claimed responsibility for the cyber attack on the company and claimed to be in possession of confidential sensitive data stolen from its systems.

 

 

The compromised data includes sensitive PII of donors including their Social security Numbers, dates of birth, addresses, dead donors’ data including Social security Numbers, dates of birth, addresses, and information of donor centres.

 

According to the hackers’ claims, the stolen data also includes laboratory data, financial data including audits, reports, payments, contracts, employee data like passports, contracts, contacts, family details, medical examinations, business data including contracts, contacts, planning, presentations, and other data taken from shares and personal folders.