ATU hit by cyber attack

On 18 May, well-known German garage chain A.T.U Auto-Teile-Unger Handels GmbH & Co. KG (ATU) suffered a cyber attack that put some of its systems and servers out of action. That led the company to warn customers they would experience “various restrictions” and should expect longer waiting times.

The most obvious impact of the attack was that ATU’s website was initially out of action that day after the attack (Friday 19 May 2023). Speaking at the time, the company also confirmed that its phone systems were also affected.  The company said it was analyzing the attack and working on “appropriate countermeasures”.

Local news sources cited a company spokesperson as saying that ATU had “installed several transition solutions in order to be able to carry out the most important processes on site.”

By Monday 22 May, branch phone lines had been restored and ATU’s online offering began being “gradually restarted”, with a company spokesperson adding: “We continue to work intensively with internal and external experts to remedy the IT disruption”.

Roughly a month later, at the end of June, The ATU website was back up and running again, but T&A understands that the attack was still impacting some functionality.

The police have not released any details relating to the perpetrators of the attack.

The ATU workshop chain belongs to the French Mobivia group and it counts 550 branches in Germany and Austria within its network. The company reportedly generates sales of around 1 billion euros a year.