A leading IoT manufacturer has been forced to halt production of devices after suffering a major ransomware attack.
In a statement issued yesterday, Sierra Wireless claimed the attack struck over the weekend, on March 20.
“The company’s website and other internal operations have also been disrupted by the attack. The company believes it will restart production at these facilities and resume normal operations soon,” it said.
“In the meantime, Sierra Wireless asks its customers and partners for their patience as it seeks to remediate the situation.”
At the time of writing, the firm’s website was indeed down ‘for maintenance.’
The British Columbia-based manufacturer, which claims to be the world’s leading IoT solutions provider, said its IT team reacted quickly to contain the attack.
In partnership with third-party experts, they are currently working to bring internal systems back online, which would indicate that the firm isn’t paying a ransom.
“At this time, Sierra Wireless believes the impact of the attack was limited to Sierra Wireless systems, as the company maintains a clear separation between its internal IT systems and customer facing products and services,” the firm noted.
There’s no information as yet as to whether the attackers sought to steal data during their raid.
However, in a sign of the financial impact ransomware can have on victim organizations, the wireless equipment-maker said it was withdrawing the first quarter financial guidance it provided last month.
In fact, the list of firms suffering multimillion-dollar losses from ransomware continues to grow. Earlier this month, US healthcare provider Universal Health Services (UHS) revealed that an attack last autumn may end up costing the company as much as $67m in lost revenue, operational disruption and IT overtime.
Other ransomware victims to have suffered major losses include Cognizant ($70m), Sopra Steria ($60m) and Norsk Hydro ($41m).