World’s biggest lens company suffers ransomware attack

The IT infrastructure of Luxottica, an Italian-based glasses manufacturer, is facing severe difficulties due to a suspected cyberattack that occurred sometime on Monday. In addition to massive network failures, multiple computer equipment was detected blocked, so the company staff was sent home, as were members of the production team. 

Luxottica owns affiliated brands such as Ray-Ban, Oakley and Persol.

A source close to the company’s workers’ union mentioned that all members of the production chain were notified via SMS of a computer system failure, although no causes were specified. The first hypotheses mention that this is a non specified cyberattack, although there are no official confirmations yet. 

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So far Luxottica’s website is working normally, although One Luxottica, an affiliated service, has ceased to be available since Monday afternoon: “We expect updates to clarify exactly what exactly happened,” a message says on the company’s website.

This incident looks similar to last March, when French firm Essilor and Luxottica teamed up to form Essilux Group. The new company suffered a security incident between March 20 and 21 that disrupted its production processes, although so far no further details about the incident have been revealed.

An anonymous informant revealed that this incident was caused by a ransomware attack in conjunction with an attempt to access computers connected to the company’s network. The informant also noted that threat actors tried to extract information from the company, although they failed to do so thanks to the security measures implemented.

As a precaution, the company temporarily closed its servers, restoring access soon after.