ZDNet media resource writes that last weekend the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Compal suffered from the DoppelPaymer ransomware attack.
Compal is today the second largest laptop manufacturer in the world after Quanta Computer, another Taiwanese company.For example, Compal manufactures laptops for companies such as Apple, Acer, Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, HP and Fujitsu. Compal also manufactures monitors, tablets, smartwatches, televisions and various computer peripherals.
Information about the DoppelPaymer ransomware attack on Compal is indirectly confirmed by a screenshot of the hackers’ ransomware message that the company’s employees provided to Yahoo reporters.
According to Taiwanese media reports, the attack was discovered on Sunday morning and affected approximately 30% of Compal’s entire computer fleet. For example, employees who came to work were greeted by a notification from Compal IT specialists, where they were asked to check the status of workstations and make backups of important files if the system was not damaged.
Despite local media reports, in an interview with United News Network Qingxiong Lu, the head of Compal, admitted that the company suffered from some kind of attack, but denied that the recent shutdown of the tech giant was caused by a ransomware attack. According to him, the failure affected only the company’s internal office network, and the production lines were not affected.
Qingxiong estimated the company would be back to normal later on Monday, when staff is expected to finish restoring all the systems that have been impacted by what he described as “abnormalities.”
Compal is the third major Taiwanese plant that suffered from the ransomware gangs this year. Taiwan State Power Company CPC Corp. was attacked by ColdLocker ransomware in May, and the Taiwanese factory of the American smartwatch manufacturer Garmin was hit by the WastedLocker ransomware in July.
Let me also remind that the DoppelPaymer ransomware operators have announced that they will not attack medical institutions during the pandemic.
