7-Eleven (unsplash photo)
A few months before the opening of the first “Seven Eleven” store in Israel, the American convenience store giant is facing a major cyber attack in Denmark this week and a ransom demand. The attack, which took place on Monday, caused the encryption of the cash register computers in 176 of the chain’s stores and according to media reports, apparently it was decided in the chain not to pay the ransom demand but to reinstall all the cash registers. As of yesterday (Wednesday), it was not possible to pay in the chain’s branches that were attacked in Denmark with a credit card, but only with cash or the “MobilePay” application.
The attack against the giant chain, which signed an agreement with the Electra consumer goods chain and will launch its first branch in Israel on the symbolic date of November 7 (7.11) followed by dozens more branches according to reports, raises a big question regarding the protection against cyber attacks of the marketing chains in Israel, which are known to hold personal details sensitive information of many consumers, including names, ID numbers and phone numbers and of course credit information.
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According to Ram Levy, CEO of “Konfidas”, the company for the protection and management of cyber crises, “Denmark is one of the most advanced ‘cashless’ economies in the world. In an age where everything is digital, the more digital payments are used – cyber protection is inevitable.
“Unfortunately, the level of cyber protection of the major retail companies in Israel is not good enough, and this is to say the least, and this is also true for supermarkets, restaurants, clothing stores, electrical product chains and even smart gas pumps, etc. Wherever there are smart cash registers, it is actually an outdated Windows computer And very vulnerable, in an old version and probably without any protection.
“There are retail companies in Israel that have suffered attacks and ransom demands and only by a miracle did the attack not reach the cash registers and they were able to continue working as usual in the stores, but they did have a lot of difficulty in managing the inventory and supplying the goods to the stores. If such an attack occurs in a single store it is not so bad, but it happens in – 300 sites at the same time throughout the country and at several stations or checkouts in each store, that’s another, much bigger story.
“In that case, it will take about an hour to reinstall each station, not including settings, faults, etc., so we are talking about 300 hours of work. Even if they bring 30 technicians, it will take at least a day – and the costs accordingly. In addition, this scenario is before investigation Forensics and the installation of additional protections, to make sure that this does not happen again and to know what happened before the encryption, for example whether information was leaked, or whether data was encrypted, stolen or tampered with at checkouts.
“Organizations and companies in Israel do not have much choice in the face of these attacks, but to protect themselves and make sure that their cyber defense is good. These defense actions include software updates, including for the websites that are exposed to attack, protecting the e-mail, verifying proper backups, conducting information security monitoring on an ongoing basis and working with a company that will manage the crisis, if necessary. In addition, companies that hold a lot of personal information are strongly advised to make sure that they meet the information security requirements of the Privacy Protection Authority, in order to avoid violations of the law.”
The network said: “We suspect that we have fallen victim to a cyber attack. […] This means we cannot use checkouts or receive payment. Therefore, the stores will remain closed until the extent of the damage is determined.”
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