European glass and metal packaging manufacturer Ardagh Group has fallen victim to a cyber-attack, the company admitted in a statement on Monday, May 17.
The manufacturer said that the attacks forced it to introduce “containment procedures, including pro-actively shutting down certain IT systems and applications.”
The company involved third-party security experts to help with the investigation and has been busy remediating operational problems.
“The group’s IT team, supported by external cybersecurity and other specialists, has been working to remediate this issue, while continuing to safely operate our facilities,” the statement reads.
According to Ardagh Group, its metal beverage packaging and glass packaging facilities remained operational. However, the attack impacted shipping which resulted in delays and interruption in supply chain operations.
The company made it clear that the attack caused substantial disruption and that it doesn’t expect to recover from it until the end of the month.
Ardagh Group’s statement doesn’t share much detail on what might have happened.
“We are progressively bringing key systems back online securely, in a phased manner. This is proceeding according to plan and is expected to be substantially achieved by the end of this month,” the statement continues.
In the statement, the company admitted that the attack may result in “some deferral or loss of revenue, as well as to incremental costs. The group maintains appropriate insurance in respect of a wide range of risks,” it added.
This kind of disruption could have resulted from a variety of problems including unauthorized network intrusion or ransomware infection.
The Daily Swig reports that it contacted Ardagh Group with a request to explain what had happened, but Ardagh said it had “no further comments to make at this time”.
