One of South Korea's largest retailers, E-Land, was forced to close nearly half of its stores after a ransomware attack.
E-Land said its corporate network was attacked early Sunday morning, forcing it to close 23 of its 50 department stores.
Chang -Hyun Seok, CEO of E-Land Retail, confirmed the attack and said that the ransomware was installed at E-Land's headquarters on November 22.
According to local news agency Yonhap, E-Land shut down part of its corporate network to limit the damage. Police have already begun investigating the ransomware attack.
“Efforts were made to shut down the serverto prevent further damage. As a result, some stores were out of service. We apologize to our customers,” Seok said.
The CEO said that files secure customer data and other sensitive are encrypted on separate servers and are.
Depending on the ransomware, it is possible that some data (data theft before encryption has been a trend in the last year).
News of the attack came as well-known antivirus provider McAfee had begun warning retailers in the Asia region about cyberattacks both during Black Friday week and during the upcoming holiday season.
McAfee 's report , published in July, said that cyberattacks on retailers rose 15% in the first quarter of this year . This year, more people have turned to online shopping due to COVID-19 . That means we can expect even more attacks.
There are many ways to attack: attacks , denial of service attacks, site problems, ransomware, malware, phishing etc.
McAfee advises all e-commerce businesses to have a page on their website that provides advice to customers on what to look out for to avoid scams. Employees should also be trained to spot threats immediately.
“If a retailer falls victim to a successful cyberattack, the results can be devastating. Loss of reputation, financial impact, loss of trust and even service shutdown. It’s no joke,” McAfee said.
Source: Inside Retail
