F&P Appliances are the latest to be hit by Nefilim ransomware

• The appliances company was hit by the virus sometime early last week which led the company to temporarily shut down manufacturing and distribution operations.
• The spokesperson from F&P said that the company has been in constant communication with third parties to restore systems and prevent such an occurrence in the future.

The appliances by Fisher and Paykel are the latest to be affected by ransomware which has led to the company shutting down operations during recovery procedures after the attack.

The spokesperson for Fisher and Paykel, Andrew Luxmoore confirmed that the attack happened early last week. He said that the attempt made was identified quickly and subsequently the company went into an IT ecosystem lockdown soon after. He further added that the company is working with third parties at the moment to restore their systems while adding more security measures to deter such an occurrence from happening in the future.

Luxmoore also revealed that the ransomware attack affected manufacturing and distribution operations at the company and it had to shut down all facilities while fighting this ransomware attack. Nefilim is the name of the virus used in this attack. This is the same virus used earlier this year for the devastating attack on the Toll group which led to the company exfiltrating 200 GB of data.

There have been records in the past when criminal gangs like Sodinokibi, Maze, DoppelPaymer, have used the Nefilim to steal data from companies and blackmail to release the same into the open world so as to force the companies to pay a ransom in return.

This attack on the company has happened at a time when the attacks on all companies are increasing. These ransomware attacks in the region include the ones on car manufacturer, Honda, as well as on the beverage company Lion. In both these instances, production lines were the ones to be impacted.

The spokesperson, Andrew Luxmoore further said that the company has been in constant communication with other companies to further understand how to best tackle such instances and protect itself and deter such a criminal activity from happening in the future.

Source Credits: https://www.itnews.com.au/news/fisher-paykel-appliances-struck-by-nefilim-ransomware-549102