Crooks turned a blind eye

Brewery successfully fends off cyberattack

According to the management, there was no danger to the brewery's operations(Bild: Wolfgang Spitzbart .)

Unknown persons managed to access the e-mail account of an employee of a Mühlviertel brewery. Thanks to a good IT alarm and defense system, however, no damage was caused. The cyber bandits probably carried out their attack from abroad.

It has only now become known that unknown persons launched a cyber attack on the Freistadt brewery on August 21.

Despite multiple authentication, unauthorized access to the email account of an employee in the marketing department was detected on this day. "Our system and our IT department immediately raised the alarm - all precautionary measures were effective," says Managing Director Paul Steininger (44).

The cyber bandits were therefore only able to access the employee's address book and email traffic. Further access was blocked and all possible measures were taken to prevent damage.

Access from abroad blocked
Among other things, access from abroad was blocked, the authenticated devices were deleted, the password was changed and all log-ins were reset. "We also called in the data protection authority," explains the Managing Director, who remains tight-lipped about the attacker's background.

However, the attack is not said to have had any impact on the brewery's operations. Steininger: "There was no danger of this at all."