California based toy making company ‘Mattel’ has made it official that it has become a victim of a ransomware attack that disrupted some of its business operations, leading to apparent financial losses.
In what is known to our Cybersecurity Insiders, Mattel suffered a ransomware attack sometime in July this year but chose to make it official in its latest quarterly filing to US Securities Exchange Commission.
Mattel disclosed in its statement that the file-encrypting malware succeeded in crippling some of its production systems, thus making the authorities to shut down the systems, to contain the spread of the malware.
The American Multinational Toymaker says that it has taken all appropriate measures to avoid such incidents in the future and assured that no client, retail, supplier, and employee data was compromised or breached. Mattel also specified in its filing to SEC that it has restored all its systems from backups.
Note 1- A ransomware is a kind of malware that encrypts data until a ransom is paid to the hackers. And as the world of hacking is getting super-sophisticated, many malware spreading gangs are seen first stealing a portion of data from the database and then locking it down until a ransom is paid. RYUK and Maze are the two notorious malware spreading gangs indulging in such tactics and Maze has pulled out of the race in Nov’2020.
Note 2- US law enforcement agency FBI is urging users not to pay the ransom to hackers as it encourages crime and doesn’t guaranty the decryption key in return. And the best way to defend against such attacks is to have efficient data backup plans in place to keep the data continuity intact in the event of a disaster.
