It probably took weeks before Continental even noticed the hacker attack in the summer. Why did it take so long.
The auto supplier and tire manufacturer Continental only noticed the hacker attack on its IT systems in the summer after about four weeks, according to information from the company. As the financial news agency dpa-AFX learned from corporate circles on Wednesday, the cyber attackers are said to have gained access to data in the Hanover-based company’s network as early as July 4th. This was found later when analyzing the data.
Towards the end of August, Conti announced that it had discovered and averted an attack on the systems on August 4th. At the beginning of November, the company admitted that data had been leaked in the process. The “Handelsblatt” had first reported on the beginning of the hacker attack in July. A company spokesman declined to comment on the information.
External specialists analyze the incident
According to reports, the supervisory board of the Dax group was informed about the status of the investigation on Tuesday. The analysis of the incident with the help of external specialists is ongoing, the spokesman said on Wednesday. This also includes whether sensitive information about customers and customer contracts is part of the data with which hackers apparently want to achieve a ransom payment under threat of publication.
The data set is said to be a total of 40 terabytes of data tapped. Conti’s IT system processes 220 terabytes of data every day. According to the company, the hackers did not encrypt any data on Conti servers, which is why day-to-day business was not affected. Nevertheless, the topic is sensitive for the management around boss Nikolai Setzer, because, among other things, details from contracts could cause displeasure among customers.
