- An Ikea franchise company suffered a ransomware attack
- The cost of the incident Fourlis group Million thanks to operational interruption
- Ransomware is constantly increasing in popularity
He has revealed an attack against the franchise company of Ikea Fourlis Group cost the company more than € 15 million ($ 17 million).
Cybercriminals violated the company’s systems only two days before Black Friday 2024, one of the biggest days of negotiation of the year, impacting the assets of the Fourlis group in Romania, Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria.
At the time of the attack, it was not clear what parts of Fourlis were affected, but now it has been revealed that Ikea stores online and the client management system were interrupted. It is said that the intrusion of the hacker lasted more than two weeks, creating “serious gaps in a critical commercial period,” local media (translated, originally in Greek) reported.
A qualitative load
Vasilis Fourlis, president of the Group’s Board of Directors, confirmed that “without a doubt there was also a qualitative burden” and that the company is making “a great effort to reverse the situation.”
The affected systems were restored very rapidly, without filtering personal data and without the payment of a rescue, he added, noting that other attacks attacked the company, but deviated successfully.
Ransomware attacks increased in 2024, and the retail industry was a main objective, since the inactivity time for these organizations is very expensive, and tend to have large amounts of personal identification information about their customers, such as names, email addresses, shipping addresses and payment information, all of which can be reached or sold on the dark website.
It is not clear what the initial entry point was in this attack, but thanks to the increase in AI, cyber attacks are now much more accessible to criminals, which can use technology to send more sophisticated attacks at a higher rate than ever.
According to reports, the Fourlis group has invested a million euros in digital infrastructure, and has transferred some IT systems and internal cybersecurity capabilities after the incident.
Via capital.gr (translated, originally in Greek)
