“What we’ve seen is a steady ramp up,” Appelbaum said. “The volume keeps increasing more and more. With AI, the attacks become more sophisticated.”
BRIDGETON, Mo. — Representatives from Hussmann Corp., a commercial refrigeration company, say they were temporarily iced out of their computer system by a cyberattack.
“One click on the wrong link and it’s going to cost you,” St. Louis County IT Director Tom Appelbaum said.
According to the FBI, cybercrime cost American companies more than $16 billion in 2024, an increase of nearly 10% year over year.
“What we’ve seen is a steady ramp-up,” Appelbaum said. “The volume keeps increasing more and more. With AI, the attacks become more sophisticated. It’s a volume game.”
In a statement, Hussmann Corp. confirmed the company recently experienced a data breach: “Hussmann recently experienced a data security event that affected parts of our IT systems. We moved quickly to mitigate the impact with the help of external IT specialists and have determined that the incident is contained.”
“You could have everything locked down in your system, but you have a vendor providing the software for you. If their security fails, somebody can get a backdoor into your system,” Appelbaum said.
Hussmann Corp. has yet to release what type of cyberattack the company experienced.
“It could be just a general data breach where they want to turn around and ransom the data back to the company,” Appelbaum said. “It could be a ransomware attack where they block out access to data or systems and then want to get paid to turn that access back on.”
Appelbaum said many companies have cybersecurity insurance, but there are steps to protect yourself regardless of where you go online.
“You want to put guards in place like multifactor authentication,” Appelbaum said. “Maybe even biometric screening.”
A Hussmann Corp. spokesperson said the company is supporting its employees through this disruption, including ensuring they get paid for their work.
