Several Renault Nissan Alliance plants in Europe stopped production over the weekend as a prevention against the spread of a global cyber-attack. "Proactive measures have been put in place, including the temporarily suspension of industrial activity at some sites," a spokesman for the company is quoted by Automotive News.
A massive ransomware cyber-attack is the reason for the stopped production – it has infected tens of thousands of computers in nearly 100 countries. Renault is the only major French company to be affected by the attack and several sources report some of the computers at the company’s Sandouville factory in northwestern France have displayed warning messages from the organisers of the attack.
Meanwhile, Nissan also had to stop production at its Sunderland factory in the United Kingdom, where the Nissan Leaf, Qashqai, Note, and Juke along with the Infiniti Q30 and QX30 are assembled.
“Like many organisations, our UK plant was subject to a ransomware attack affecting some of our systems on Friday evening. Our teams are working to resolve the issue," a spokesman for the Japanese brand has confirmed.
The cyber-attack is reported to be one of the biggest in the recent history and has affected mostly telecommunication companies and hospitals, as well as large companies from all sectors of the business. Thousands of people were left with no driving licenses and registration plates for their cars in Russia due to the infected computers of the local police departments.
The cyber criminals tricked victims into opening emails containing malicious malware attachments in the form of invoices, job offers, security warnings, and other legitimate files.
Source: Automotive News and Reuters
