Hackers Paralyze only Newsprinting Facility in Switzerland

April 29, 2023

INCIDENT

The machines at the Perlen paper factory in the Lucerne town of the same name are at a standstill due to a hacker attack. Newsprint and LWC production at Perlen and packaging production in Müllheim, Germany, which has been down since 7 January, restarted 6 days later on January 13. The chemistry division was not affected and was therefore able to continue production normally.

The factory normally outputs 1400 tons of newsprint paper per day. In a statement, the CPH Group said all IT systems were shut down on the 7th out of an abundance of caution and to contain any spread, strongly suggesting but not confirming they were a ransomware victim. They resumed production in January 13, after 6 days of downtime.

Incident Date

January 7, 2022

Estimated Cost

Production interrupted. 6 days downtime

Type of Malware

No Malware identified

Threat Source

No threat source identified