Smart devices security

Sierra Wireless halts it’s manufacturing plants post ransomware attack

Earlier this week Sierra Wireless, a leading IoT manufacturer reported it was halting production in its manufacturing sites, taking offline key IT Systems and websites, as a result of suffering a ransomware attack.

Sierra Wireless products include network devices, routers, modems and other communications devices. The company believe that none of its customer facing products have been affected by the attack.

Details of what type of ransomware attack and the demands have not yet been disclosed. The attack started on March 20th, with Sierra Wireless disclosing it on March 23rd. As soon as the company learnt about the attack their IT teams followed their emergency cyber security procedures. They hope to bring internal systems, websites, and production sites back online soon.

Sierra Wireless’s annual revenue was $448.6 million in 2020. As part of the disruption, first quarter 2021 results have been delayed due to the uncertainty of the impacts this attack will have on the company.

As of Thursday 25th, the main https://www.sierrawireless.com/ remains down, and replaced with a single message:

“Sierra Wireless announced on March 23rd that it was the subject of a ransomware attack on its internal IT systems and websites. We believe the attack has been addressed, and are currently working to bring Sierra Wireless’ internal IT systems back online, including our websites.

We believe the impact of the attack was limited to Sierra Wireless internal IT systems and corporate websites, as we maintain a clear separation between our internal IT systems and customer facing products and services.

In response to the ransomware attack, we have halted production at our manufacturing sites, and believe we will restart production and resume normal operations soon.”

Ransomware remains a significant issue for organisations. It is estimated that there are 4000 ransomware attacks daily, with organisations that pay average a payment of £169,000 and experience an average of 19 days downtime. It is estimated this year that a ransomware attack will occur every 11 seconds.

Cyber-attacks are an ongoing fight against unknown actors. With more state backing, these attacks are becoming increasingly well-funded, complex and common. Contact Fundamentals First about how our outsourced Security Operations Centre (SOC) will operate as an extension to your in-house teams, providing the increased protection you require.


An outsourced SOC

Cyber-attacks from state-backed hackers to organised ransomware attacks is continuing to become an increasing challenge for many organisations. In fact, the continued increasing trend in cybercrime and cyber-attacks, including breaches, phishing, access management and endpoint security attacks, contributed to an estimated 12% Compound Annual Growth Rate in cyber security IT spending by the end of 2021.

This challenge has worsened over 2020 and 2021, with many organisations having their employees working at home due to coronavirus. The mass adoption of new ways of working, the provisioning of remotely distributed networks, and unplanned IT solutions implemented at speed has opened new avenues for cyber-attacks. Reports of new malware targeting home worker systems using sophisticated machine learning to optimise the attack and evade detection have been discovered.

Many cyber security teams are facing the impossible task of securing unplanned, sprawling corporate and potentially vulnerable home networks.

With 51% of organisations being hit by ransomware in the last year, 34% are saying that lack of skilled resources is their most significant security operations issue when determining root cause of a security incident. As a result, 65% of organisations have already outsourced some or all of their cyber security controls.

Organisations with a single internal Head of Information Security, or even a small cyber security team are struggling to keep up with the advancing complexity of attacks and technology. Over half of security professionals surveyed stated that they were too busy completing business as usual daily tasks to be able to concentrate on the larger issues, like implementing improved security controls.

In recognition to this untenable situation, many companies are taking now benefit from the advantages of scaling their cyber security solution through an outsourced SOC (Security Operations Centre). An outsourced SOC can scale your cyber protection without you increasing your internal head count. It reduced pressure on HR in finding skilled cyber security experts, and delivers state of the art cyber security solutions at a significantly reduced price point.   

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