One of the main supermarket chains in Sweden announced on Saturday that it was forced to temporarily close about 800 stores in the country after a cyber attack that paralyzed its cash registers.
This is reported by Svenska Dagbladet.
“One of our subcontractors was affected by a computer attack, and for this reason, our cash registers are no longer working,” Coop Sweden, which represents about 20% of the sector in the Nordic country, said in a press release.
“We regret this situation and are doing everything possible to open up quickly,” the network added.
Neither the name of the relevant subcontractor nor the method of action used for the cyberattack that began on Friday evening, have been made public.
But the incident comes amid a wave of ransomware attacks targeting commercial and government facilities around the world, especially in the United States.
The ransomware program paralyzes the organization’s computer system, which is then ordered to transfer funds to hackers in order to resume work. According to the security firm Emsisoft, at least $18 billion was paid to ransomware hackers last year. Many experts believe that the hackers behind these attacks are based in Russia. Moscow denies any involvement.
