Massy Distribution Jamaica confirms cyberattack on its systems

Massy Distribution Jamaica, one of the country's largest suppliers of consumer and pharmaceutical goods, says it was the victim of a recent cyberattack, although it's mum on whether customers' data was impacted.

"The specifics of what occurred are still under investigation by our technical experts," said the company in a statement Saturday on the ransomware attack.

Ransomware attacks occur when hackers lock up victims' data and demand exorbitant sums to return it. Some hackers also copy sensitive files and threaten to post them publicly unless they get their ransom payments.

Massy's Marketing and Corporate Communications Manager Patria-Kaye Charles said the incident was discovered about two weeks ago and "has been resolved". 

Whether there was any data breach and if payments were made to the attackers were among a series of questions from The Gleaner that Massy did not answer. 

"We remain confident that our ongoing cybersecurity risk mitigation efforts have been effective to date in enabling the timely identification of and responding to this incident," the company said. 

It added: "Our robust business continuity measures as well as shared expertise across the group allowed for the restoration of affected operations safely and quickly. Already, we know that our systems and Enterprise Resource Planning software remain unaffected, and all activity by the company is at full resumption."

Charles said Massy has not involved the government authorities in its response to the cybersecurity issue. 

This is the second cyber-related incident to hit a member of the Trinidad-based Massy Group this year. 

An attack forced the company to close Massy Stores in Trinidad and Tobago on April 28. 

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