Car Rental Giant Sixt Hit by Cyber-Attack

Global car rental firm Sixt has admitted that some of its business operations and services are suffering disruption after a cyber-attack struck the firm over the weekend.

The German-headquartered company, which has thousands of locations in over 100 countries worldwide, released a brief statement on Sunday via parent company Sixt SE confirming the incident.

It claimed that “IT irregularities” were first detected on Friday, April 29, when incident response plans kicked in. After discovering the attack, Sixt said it was able to “contain” it at an early stage.

“As a standard precautionary measure, access to IT systems was immediately restricted and the pre-planned recovery processes were initiated. Many central Sixt systems, in particular the website and apps were kept up and running,” it continued.

“Thereby, impacts on the company, its operations and services have been minimized to provide business continuity for customers. However, temporary disruptions, in particular in customer care centers and selective branches, are likely to occur in the short term.”

Local media reports from Germany claimed that rental bookings were only possible for a time via pen and paper, while a telephone hotline was not operational.

Sixt said it “is taking this incident seriously and has implemented a thorough investigation with internal and external experts.”

Although not mentioned by name, the disruption caused to the firm would seem to indicate that online extortionists are to blame.

The German government’s support for Ukraine has put the country’s businesses in the firing line of potential pro-Russia ransomware groups. However, with record revenues in excess of €2.2bn last year, Sixt would be an attractive target for any financially motivated cybercrime gang.