Australian Information Security Incident Reported: February 20 2020

Australian Malware Attack February 2020: Car auction house Manheim suffers significant malware attack

One of Australia’s largest car auction companies has been forced to temporarily halt its operations after a major security breach.

Source: Manheim Auctions Australia Facebook Page

19 February Manheim’s Facebook
This is an update in relation to the incident impacting Manheim. Overnight we made positive progress with our IT systems restoration. While making substantial headway, we are still working towards being able to bring our core operating systems back online.

On this basis, we will not be proceeding with any auctions or sales events which were planned to occur, open or close on Thursday February 20. Our objective is to open online sales on Friday (February 21) and hold scheduled auctions in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney on Saturday (February 22); however we will confirm this in due course.

The incident we have experienced is due to malware (malicious software) which was designed to restrict access to our IT systems and interrupt our normal business operations. We currently have no evidence that any of our data has been compromised. We continue to work closely with external professional IT security advisors who are helping us facilitate a restoration of services as soon as possible.

We regret this incident has happened and would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused. Minimising any ongoing disruption to you as a result of this incident remains our primary concern. We can assure you that we are working hard to resolve this incident as quickly as we can.