Massachussets based semiconductor manufacturing company, MKS Instruments, has become the subject of a ransomware attack. The attack was discovered by MKS and reported to the US Security and Exchange Commission on February 6, 2023.
According to the initial incident details that have been communicated by MKS Instruments, the ransomware attack has impacted a few production systems. The statement released by MKS Instruments reads –
On February 3, 2023, MKS Instruments, Inc. (the “Company”) identified that it had become subject to a ransomware event and took immediate action to activate its incident response and business continuity protocols to contain the incident. The Company’s investigation and assessment of the impact of this incident is ongoing and appropriate incident response professionals have been engaged. The Company has notified law enforcement authorities.
The Company is in the early stages of its investigation and assessment of this incident. The incident has affected certain business systems, including production-related systems, and as part of the containment effort, the Company has elected to temporarily suspend operations at certain of its facilities. The Company is working diligently to complete the investigation and restore the Company’s systems and impacted operations as quickly as possible. The full scope of the costs and related impacts of this incident, including the extent to which the Company’s cybersecurity insurance may offset some of these costs, has not been determined.
SEC filing of MKS Instruments
It is not clear if the ransomware attack on MKS Instruments’ infrastructure is a part of the current round of attacks on the vulnerable VMWare ESXi servers.
The company is, reportedly, in the midst of restoring systems and data at the affected production facility.
As of now, the website of MKS Instruments remains inaccessible. It is likely a result of the current attack on the IT infrastructure associated with the company.
Rajesh Dhawan is a technology professional who loves to blog about smart wearables, Cloud computing and Microsoft technologies. He loves to break complex problems into manageable chunks of meaningful information.