Engineering group IMI latest UK firm to be hit by cyber attack
Engineering group IMI latest UK firm to be hit by cyber attack
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Engineering firm IMI revealed it has been hit by a cyber attack just a week after rival Smiths Group said hackers had gained access to its global systems. Birmingham-headquartered IMI declined to disclose what data had been accessed in the attack, but systems in a number of its locations worldwide are understood to have been impacted. It has isolated certain systems while it deals with the hack and is working with externally-hired cybersecurity specialists.
“As soon as IMI became aware of the unauthorised access, the company engaged external cybersecurity experts to investigate and contain the incident,” IMI said. IMI is also taking steps to comply with regulatory obligations, it added. Employees and customers have been informed about the incident, but it is understood that the hack was not targeting staff or customer data. Just last week, fellow FTSE 100 firm Smiths Group alerted the stock market to a cyber attack amid a recent spate of IT hacks on UK companies, although the two incidents are not believed to be linked.
Transport for London suffered a major IT hack, which saw about 5,000 customers warned their details may have been accessed. High-end department store Harvey Nichols also revealed last autumn that some customer details may have been exposed when it fell victim to a cyber attack. And in November, Portsmouth City Council said it was one of a number of local authorities across the country hit by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which involves the attacker flooding a server or website with internet traffic originating from more than one source.
