Monday, May 15, 2017
By Manoj Kumawat
Auto Manufacturers in India Threatened by Ransomware Attack
The recent cyber attack ransomware has now started affecting the data bank of automobile manufacturing companies. According to recent industry reports the virus has attacked the data set of automakers like Renault, Nissan, and Dacia due to which they have to halt their production activities at different units, including the production plant of Renault and Nissan at Chennai. This has created the threat among the auto makers in Indian car market and to get rid of this problem and prevent their data set, all of them have started following precautionary steps to protect themselves from the attack.
Commenting on the preventive measures adopted by auto maker the spokesperson of country’s leading car maker MSIL said, "We have not been impacted by the global cyber virus attack till now. Preventive countermeasures have been taken to counter any such attack. As a part of good business practices, we regularly issue advisories to employees not to access any unknown emails or links, which could led to malware attacks." Whereas on the other side Honda Cars India Limited, the Indian arm of Japanese car maker Honda Motors has issued instructions for not using laptop or other internet connections within the office premises, except the official internet network. According to the sources of company all the employees of the group have instructed to do not download any documents which seem to be suspicious.
Talking about the Ransomware virus, it locks the computer via a downloadable link and put backs the system in place. In India till now, two south Indian banks, two manufacturing companies in Delhi, 102 computers of Andhra Pradesh Police Department and an FMCG and their headquarters are reported to be impacted from the attack.
As far as other auto makers are concerned most of them have claimed that their systems have not been affected by the virus and moreover as now the virus has been weekend there are no reports from auto companies halting their production activities, except yesterday’s news of halt at Renault-Nissan Chennai plant.
