Organized IT-attack reported to Swedish Security Service

This Tuesday, Gunnebo reported an attack against the companies’ servers to the Swedish Security Service (Säpo). The decision was made after external IT-forensics had analysed the attack and concluded that it was well organized.

“We can only speculate on what the target of the attack was, but as we cannot rule out that it was an attempt at industrial espionage, it has been important to follow the regulations and we have therefore decided to inform Säpo”, says Stefan Syrén, President and CEO, Gunnebo.

Last week, Gunnebo's IT department could establish that an unauthorized party had tried to gain access to the company's servers. In response, the company immediately shut down the servers to isolate the attack. Because of this quick action, effects were kept to a minimum and the majority of operations were soon back online. For now, only a few servers remain unplugged awaiting the conclusion of the IT-forensics investigation.

After consulting external experts to assess the attack, the company decided to report the incident to the Swedish Security Service.

In addition, the company has initiated a full review of the organisation's entire IT systems to tighten the security further. As the investigation is still ongoing, it is at the moment not possible to evaluate the long-term effects on Gunnebo of the attack.

“Safety always comes first for Gunnebo. As a direct consequence of the event, we have decided to do a full review of our IT structure, which is time-consuming but important”, says Stefan Syrén.