They refused to give in to blackmail, even if it meant having to rebuild everything. The high-end lingerie group from Lyon, Lise Charmel, has been placed in receivership "for protection" after a massive cyber attack in early November, of which the company only really emerged in January, according to its director general.
“We met on the morning of November 8 with all our files, all our data, all our encrypted stations in France and abroad. We were in shock for several weeks. It was terribly violent ”, recognizes Olivier Piquet.
A malicious computer software ( ransomware ) "had taken all our data hostage in exchange for a key allowing to decrypt it", explains the boss of the company, confirming this mishap revealed by the information site Salade Lyonnaise.
No ransom paid
The group's 1,150 employees worldwide - 400 in the Lyon region - "were all blocked by this targeted attack". Objective of "ransomware": to extort a large sum of money from a paralyzed company, generally to be paid in virtual currency to avoid any trace.
"We want to remain discreet, but our bias was to not pay the ransom and to rebuild," said the leader. "This is why we asked the commercial court".
The bringing into receivership of all the French entities of the group, on February 27, is above all technical: “It is to shelter us, to protect us from any financial pressure while we want to catch up with our production delay and delivery, go ahead and work in peace. "
"A great chain of solidarity"
"All our partners, producers and customers, who have formed a super solidarity chain, are aware of and support us", he congratulates himself. Because these months of forced stop, the time to redeploy all the systems, were difficult with "a shortfall still to be specified but which probably amounts to several million euros".
The group also detected "no impact" on its activity of the coronavirus. "We are at this stage on catching up with our delay," notes Olivier Piquet. Present in around 40 countries in Europe and North America, the Lise Charmel group achieved cumulative turnover of nearly 60 million euros in 2018. Its activity depends 50% on export with five brands (Lise Charmel, Epure, Eprise, Antigel, Antinéa) and several dozen stores abroad.
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