Eurofins: hit by expensive ransomware

(CercleFinance.com) - It was a hard week for the share of the bioanalytical group Eurofins Scientific, which at this showed the largest weekly decline in the broad index SBF 120 of the Paris Bourse: -10%, after the revelation of a software attack.
The affair has indeed been costly for the group.

On Monday, management revealed that the weekend had been difficult for the group's IT systems: indeed, some of Eurofins' computers were infected by a ransomware hacker that blocks the content of at least one computer, demanding the payment of a sum of money, or rather cryptocurrency, be made to reopen the accesses.

Immediately, Eurofins took infected systems and servers offline to contain the threat, and was assisted by external experts to closely analyse their systems, install new protection software, check and reinstall backups...

As this could take some time, the group said in a statement on 3 June, Eurofins apologizes to customers of labs and sites that may be affected by this temporary disruption, or delays in some of its services. As the group has not communicated since, it can be assumed that the incident is not over yet.

The market didn't like this news at all. While the SBF 120 rose by nearly 3% over the week, Eurofins shares have fallen by 10%. After closing on Friday 31 May at 407.2 euros, the share price even fell to 366 euros on Friday morning (7 June). As such, about 700 million euros has been wiped off the group's market capitalisation.

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