Belgium based scientific testing laboratory Eurofins has unfortunately encountered a ransomware attack on its digital assets on June 2nd this year. And the security breach has made the UK police suspend its ties with Europe’s forensic firm.
Technically speaking, the firm which is actually headquartered in Brussels provides clinical research for companies and government organizations with regards to pharma, Agro, food, consumer products, and environmental studies.
Eurofins is reported to run more than 800 labs across 47 nations located in Asia-Pacific, North and South America, and Europe and has a headcount of 45,000 staff working in and for the laboratory-based research.
Last month the company opened a research lab related to the Internet of Things (IoT) in Groningen, Netherlands- just before a week before the cyber attack.
Cybersecurity Insiders has learned that Eurofins database which records and stores all the research info was hit by unknown ransomware in the first week of June pulling down most of the IT systems operating in the company. The IT staff which were quick to react pulled down other servers and systems as a precautionary measure in order to contain the damage.
On June 10th this year, the company released an official note that the attack was highly sophisticated probably involving some state-funded actors.
Rob Jones, the Director of National Crime Agency has admitted that the incident was notified to them on June 7th and a detailed investigation is in process.
UK’s National Cyber Security Center(NCSC) and the National Police Chief’s Council are trying to mitigate the risks and assess the nature of this incident.
Eurofins has assured that no data was compromised in the malware incident and the incident will be handled in a wise manner.
