A recent IBM report, which looked at data breaches experienced by about 600 organisations worldwide found that the average cost was $4.4m (or £3.3m).
But JLR is far from an outlier when it comes to high-profile cyber attacks on an even greater scale. Those at Marks & Spencer and the Co-op supermarket chain this year are estimated to have cost £300m and £120m respectively.
Over the Easter weekend in April, attackers managed to gain entry to Marks & Spencer’s IT systems via a third-party contractor, forcing it to take some networks offline.
They infected the company’s networks with ransomware that encrypted or scrambled its data.
Initially, the disruption seemed relatively minor – with contactless payment systems out of action, and customers unable to use its ‘click and collect’ service. However, within days, it had halted all online shopping – which normally makes up around a third of its business.
It was described at the time as “almost like cutting off one of your limbs”, by Nayna McIntosh, former executive committee member of M&S and the founder of Hope Fashion.
The firm was left with the now commonplace nightmare scenario – rebuild all computer systems from scratch or pay the hackers millions of pounds in ransom for the antidote. M&S has refused to say if they paid the criminals or not.
The damage was not just financial. The retailer later admitted that customer data had been stolen in the attack.
This potentially included telephone numbers, home addresses and dates of birth, though not it said useable payment or card details. To compound M&S’s embarrassment, hackers claimed to have sent a ransom demand directly to its chief executive, using an employee’s email account.
Click Here For The Original Source.
