Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, the international live marketing company - MCH Group was hit by a criminal cyber-attack deploying malware on Wednesday, 20th of October 2021. The Swiss event organizer and marketing firm announced that it has been striving to restore system functionality as soon as possible.
The multinational marketing and events organization is well-known for its trade shows Baselworld and Art Basel.
The MCH firm announced in a statement released on Thursday 21st of October that it had been the target of a malware assault the day before.
Also with the assistance of external experts and federal officials, company IT specialists sought to reduce the damage. An inquiry has been conducted to establish whether or not any information was taken.
According to the firm, the occurrence doesn't jeopardize present events, and therefore future trade shows may go as scheduled. Neither any ransom was asked. the MCH organization has stated that it would pursue criminal proceedings against the criminals.
“The internal ICT specialists, together with other external experts and the federal authorities, immediately took measures to limit the damage as far as possible,” it said in a statement. “As part of this process, it will be investigated if any data have been siphoned.”
The MCH group was formed in 2001 by the merging of two firms that administered fairs in Basel and Zurich, respectively. It is listed on the stock exchange, although major shares are owned by public authorities.
It employed 710 individuals at the end of December, 355 of them were based in Switzerland. The coronavirus epidemic drove the corporation into the red in 2020, but it is looking for a comeback with fresh finance and initiatives.
Cyber-attacks on official bodies and commercial enterprises are also on the rise in Switzerland, albeit not all occurrences are made public.
On Thursday, it was also revealed that cybercriminals had hacked into the official Easygov system and taken the identities of around 130,000 businesses that had requested urgent financial credit during the epidemic. Authorities claim that no critical information was compromised.
The municipal authority of the Swiss town of Montreux, Stadler Rail, and the price comparison website Comparis have also been attacked, and the personal data of the whole inhabitants of Rolle was purportedly published online in August.