Cyber attack on ista paralyzes systems

ista International GmbH was attacked by a cyber attack, as announced on its own website. To contain the damage, all affected IT systems were initially taken offline.

ista cyber attack with far-reaching consequences

“Currently, istas IT systems have been victims of external cyberattacks,” the company writes in an update on its own website. As a quick measure and to limit the damage caused, the IT infrastructure of all potentially affected IT systems of the company was initially taken offline.

Various functions and services are therefore currently unavailable, the statement continues. The company apologizes for the inconvenience and hopes for the patience of its customers while it works to bring the systems back online.

The company has already informed the relevant state data protection authority and the police about the attack and is now working with an internal and external team of experts to clarify how the cyberattack occurred.

It is currently unclear what data the attackers have accessed and what information was accessed at all. However, this information will be made available in the specially created FAQ, which will be updated regularly.

Currently no contact possible

As the company’s customer portal and email functionality is also affected and currently switched off, ista asks as a result of the cyber attack to refrain from contacting them at the moment. “We will inform them immediately via our website when the contact options are available again.”

ista International GmbH is a global energy service provider headquartered in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia. It has about 5,800 employees and takes care of about 30 million networked devices in 22 countries in the field of sub-metering.

Core business areas include measuring and recording devices such as heat cost allocators, water and heat meters, system technology and more, as well as energy certificates or smoke alarm service and an analysis of drinking water.

For your own safety, Ista advises you to delete all e-mails that may appear suspicious and not to open any links or e-mail attachments. In addition, all passwords related to ista online services should be changed as soon as possible.

In June, a similar cyber attack was carried out on the energy supplier Entega, which is headquartered in Darmstadt, and shortly before that on the car rental company Sixt. Here, too, the companies were in the dark for a long time about the background. The number of hacker attacks has therefore increased noticeably, especially in recent months.