Cybercriminals Halt Car Body Production at ThyssenKrupp Automotive Division

Steel production giant ThyssenKrupp has had a run-in with hackers, prompting it to shut down the IT systems at its automotive division.

The German conglomerate is one of the world's largest steel producers, with products ranging from machines and industrial services to high-speed trains, elevators, and shipbuilding.

ThyssenKrupp's Automotive Body Solutions, which makes car bodies, suffered a cyberattack last week, halting production.

“Our ThyssenKrupp Automotive Body Solutions business unit recorded unauthorized access to its IT infrastructure last week,” a ThyssenKrupp spokesperson told Bleeping Computer.

“The IT security team at Automotive Body Solutions recognized the incident at an early stage and has since worked with the ThyssenKrupp Group's IT security team to contain the threat,” the spokesperson added. “To this end, various security measures were taken and certain applications and systems were temporarily taken offline.”

The company’s Saarland-based plant, which serves as a research and development center in addition to steel-making, was also affected. ThyssenKrupp claims customersupplies haven’t been impacted yet.

The firm relayed to German media outlets that the situation is under control, and is working hard to restore operations.

ThyssenKrupp has yet to issue a complete, official statement on the incident. It is unclear if this was a targeted attack, who the culprits may be, what their intentions were, etc.

Over the years, ThyssenKrupp has been the victim of multiple hacking attacks targeting the company's trade secrets.

Another German behemoth to suffer a cyber-attack recently is battery maker VARTA. The company discovered the intrusion around two weeks ago, prompting it to inform market watchers that it would temporarily halt battery production for “security reasons.”

As noted then, such attacks are typically the work of high-profile ransomware operators. However, no ransomware groups have yet claimed responsibility for these attacks.