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Ransomware Attack Costs Aluminum Giant Norsk Hydro Tens of Millions of Dollars

(Eduard Kovacs – SecurityWeek) – Norwegian aluminum giant Norsk Hydro lost $35-41 million in the first quarter of 2019 as a result of the ransomware attack and expects additional losses of $23-29 million in the second quarter.

A piece of file-encrypting ransomware named LockerGoga started infecting Norsk Hydro systems on March 18. The attack caused disruptions at several of the company’s plants, forcing workers to rely on manual processes.

Hydro has been highly transparent regarding the impact of the incident. It claimed to have good backups in place and it did not intend on paying the ransom. However, the security breach still cost the firm a significant amount of money.

Roughly two weeks after the incident was made public, Hydro estimated that it lost $35-41 million (300-350 million Norwegian crowns) in the first week following the attack. Roughly one month later it made another estimate, putting the cost of the attack at roughly $50 million.

The company on Tuesday published its financial report for the first quarter, which it was forced to delay by over one month due to the cyberattack. The report shows that its Extruded Solutions unit suffered the biggest operational and financial impact.

Hydro says the overall impact of the cyberattack in the first quarter remains $35-41 million. It estimates that losses will total $23-29 million (200-250 million Norwegian crowns) in the second quarter.

“Operations and sales have recovered successively during the quarter, reducing the incremental financial impact accordingly,” the company said. “Hydro has a robust cyber insurance in place with recognized insurers. Hydro has not yet recognized any insurance compensation. This will be recorded when deemed virtually certain.”

The earnings report shows that the company’s core profit fell 82% in the first quarter, but it was still better than some experts expected and the value of Hydro shares went up following the news.