ThyssenKrupp, one of Germany’s largest companies, announced it has been the target of a large-scale, sophisticated cyber attack. According to German business magazine Wirtschafts Woche, Martin Hölz, Chief Information Officer at ThyssenKrupp, stated the attack had originated in south-east Asia and resulted in the theft of company secrets.
“ThyssenKrupp has become the target of a massive cyber attack,” the industrial giant said in a statement.
ThyssenKrupp AG is based in Duisburg and Essen, Germany. The enormous corporation owns 670 companies worldwide. It is one of the world’s largest steel makers, but also provides components and systems for the automotive industry, elevators, escalators, material trading and industrial service.
In 2006 Israel signed a contract with ThyssenKrupp to purchase two additional submarines from its HDW subsidiary. In late 2016 reports emerged of negotiations for the purchase of three additional ThyssenKrupp built submarines.
The hacker managed to steal data from two business units at ThyssenKrupp before the attack was noticed and stopped. ThyssenKrupp has reported the attack to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, but the chances of bringing the hackers to justice are negligible.
ThyssenKrupp’s revelation came a week after the attack which hit a million routers, resulting in outages for Deutsche Telekom customers.
According to Wirtschafts Woche, the attacks hit Europe, India, Argentina and the United States in sites operated by ThyssenKrupp’s Industrial Solutions division, which builds large production plants.
The Hagen Hohenlimburg specialty steel mill in western Germany was also targeted.