Morgan Advanced Materials, an industrial manufacturer headquartered in Windsor, UK, revealed on Tuesday that it was still "managing the consequences" of a cyberattack that resulted in operational inefficiencies and reduced profits.
An estimated £12 million worth of damages have been recorded across numerous sites.
Morgan is a 166 year-old manufacturer of high-performance and specialist materials using carbon, advanced ceramics, and composites, with many of these products marketed to the petrochemical and chemical, transportation, energy, semiconductor, healthcare, and defence sectors. In January 2023, the FTSE 250 group detected unauthorised activity on its network.
The company has 85 sites across 30 countries, and a number of these sites experienced a delay in restarting production and shipping as a result of the cyberattack. Financially, the attack has translated to full-year operating profits falling 10 to 15 percent below previous expectations and share prices decreasing 7.5% the morning after the announcement. The attack has also prevented its auditors from accessing necessary systems. The materials manufacturer has estimated that the total cost of recovering from the incident is between £8 million and £12 million.
In the recovery process, Morgan has been prompted to accelerate the introduction of new cloud-based software, as some systems have been deemed "irrecoverable." The company has assured that all appropriate regulatory authorities have been informed of the incident and that all manufacturing sites are operational. However, certain plants are using manual transaction processes while systems are not fully restored.
While it is known that Morgan Advanced Materials' networks were compromised, it is unclear how the attackers gained access. As a precaution against future attacks, industrial manufacturers like Morgan must regularly assess their readiness both on an organisational and a technical level. Awen Collective's software products enhance these organisations' resilience to network intrusions and ensure that they are prepared to take on today’s complex cyber threat. We invite organisations in manufacturing and similar sectors to a no-obligations chat with us about how we can help achieve their cyber-readiness goals.
