During the night of April 10-11, 2019, a computer virusaffected the Fleury-Michon site. To prevent the spread of infected systems, all systems were disconnected. The group stated in a press release that the factories and logistics unit were shut down on the same day. (source: France3 Région Pays-de-la-Loire).
At the same time, teams carried out the necessary repairs to remedy the affected services. After several days of checks and security measures, activity resumed around April 15 and returned to normal.
In addition, the agri-food group was keen to communicate that the financial impact would be limited and covered by their cyber insurance. The group praised the responsiveness of the various teams involved and thanked them for their commitment to resolving the incident quickly.
Fleury-Michon: a major target?
Indeed, the impact and weight of such a group proved to be very attractive to cybercriminals: Fleury Michon generated revenue of €725.3 million in 2018 and employs 3,500 people in France.
Nevertheless, until then, it was rare for industries to be affected by cyberattacks. In the past, we have seen banks and the healthcare sector hit hard by such attacks.
Furthermore, whether large or small, unprepared organizations can all fall victim to cyberattacks.
In addition, companies are increasingly facing spear phishing attacks. These are highly targeted attacks, rather than the mass attacks we have seen in the past. More specifically, in this type of case, it is a ransomware cyberattack, which means that the cybercriminal demands a monetary ransom from their victim in exchange for decrypting their data.
However, at this stage, we do not know whether a demand for money has been made to Fleury-Michon. They did not mention this in their press release.
