- An Ikea franchise company suffered a ransomware attack
- The incident cost Fourlis Group millions thanks to operational disruption
- Ransomware is steadily rising in popularity
An attack on Ikea franchise company Fourlis Group cost the firm over €15 million ($17 million), it has revealed.
Cybercriminals breached the company’s systems just two days before Black Friday 2024, one of the biggest trading days of the year – impacting Fourlis Group assets in Romania, Greece, Cyprus, and Bulgaria.
At the time of the attack, it wasn’t clear which parts of Fourlis were impacted, but it has now been revealed that online Ikea stores and customer management system were disrupted. The hacker’s intrusion is said to have lasted over two weeks, creating “serious gaps at a critical commercial period,” local media (translated, originally in Greek) reported.
A qualitative burden
Vasilis Fourlis, the group’s chairman of the board of directors, confirmed that there was “no doubt that there was also a qualitative burden,” and that the firm is making “a huge effort to reverse the situation”.
Affected systems were restored very quickly, without any personal data leaked and without the payment of a ransom, it added, noting further attacks targeted the company, but were successfully deflected.
Ransomware attacks surged in 2024, and the retail industry was a top target, as downtime for these organisations is seriously costly, and they tend to hold large amounts of personally identifiable information on their customers, like names, email addresses, shipping addresses, and payment information – all of which can be leveraged or sold on the dark web.
It’s not clear what the initial point of entry was in this attack, but thanks to the rise in AI, cyberattacks are now much more accessible to criminals, who can use the technology to send out more sophisticated attacks at a higher rate than ever before.
The Fourlis Group has reportedly invested a million euros into digital infrastructure, and has transferred some IT systems and cybersecurity capabilities in-house following the incident.
Via Capital.gr (translated, originally in Greek)
