- An Ikea franchise company has undergone ransomware attack
- The cost of the incident Fourlis group millions thanks to the operational disruption
- Ransomware regularly increases in popularity
An attack on the Ikea Fourlis Group franchise company cost the company more than 15 million euros ($ 17 million), he revealed.
Cybercriminals violated the company’s systems 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 which parts of Fourlis were affected, but it has now been revealed that online IKEA stores and the customer management system have been disrupted. The intrusion of the pirate would have lasted more than two weeks, creating “serious gaps in a critical commercial period”, reported the local media (translated, originally in Greek).
A qualitative burden
Vasilis Fourlis, the president of the board of the board of directors, confirmed that there was “no doubt that there was also a qualitative burden” and that the company made “a huge effort to reverse the situation”.
The affected systems have been restored very quickly, without any personal data disclosed and without the payment of a ransom, he added, noting that new attacks have targeted the company, but have been successfully diverted.
Ransomware attacks increased in 2024, and the retail industry was a higher target, because downtime for these organizations are seriously expensive, and they tend to contain large amounts of information personally identifiable on their customers, such as names, email addresses, shipping addresses and payment information – which can be lifted or sold on the Dark web.
It is not clear what was the initial entry point 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.
The Fourlis group would have invested one million euros in digital infrastructure and has transferred certain IT systems and internal cybersecurity capacities after the incident.
Via capital.gr (translated, originally in Greek)
