The popular Swiss watch and jewelry manufacturer, Swatch Group, IT systems its over the weekend after detecting a cyberattack targeting the company.
Swatch Group is best known for its colorful watches, which are commonly sold in department stores in various regions around the world. The company employs over 36,000 people in 50 countries and had revenue of $9.6 billion in 2019.
Swatch Group said it detected a cyberattack over the weekend and its IT staff decided to shut down its IT systems to prevent the attack from spreading across the network.
“Swatch Group confirms that it has identified clear signs of a breach in some of its IT systems over the weekend. For security, the Group took immediate action and proactively shut down some of its systems, which affected certain operations.“.
The watchmaker said it immediately launched an investigation to assess and analyze the nature of the attack and took appropriate measures to address the problem. “The situation will return to normal as soon as possible.”
According to Bleeping Computer, Swatch Group has not provided further details about the security incident, but it was likely a ransomware attack.
If this is true, then Swatch is one of the latest victims a ransomware attack. In recent days, many well-known and large companies, such as Luxottica, Universal Health Services, Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG), and Tyler Technologies, have been hit by ransomware.
Ransomware gangs are increasingly targeting large organizations, as they have realized that they are more likely to receive the ransom. A large company cannot interrupt its services and operations for too long, so it is more likely to give in and pay the ransom to the hackers.
