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Like tremblors after an earthquake, reverberations from the ransomware attack on Finnish Tietoevry last week were felt hard in Sweden. Tietoevry supplies administrative systems to businesses, agencies and authorities all over the world. Consumers in Sweden felt it at the movies when they couldn’t buy tickets, candy or even popcorn in Svenska Film’s Tietoevry payment system. Rusta, Systembolaget, Stadium, and Granngården are just some of the affected companies.
Communities under siege
Several local municipalities were laid low as well. Systems in Vellinge and Bjuv municipalities, as well as in Västerbotten, Sörmland, Blekinge and Uppsala Regions were impaired. All of Sweden’s 139 service centers were impacted. Swedavia, the state agency that runs Sweden’s major airports, has also gone public saying their internal financial system has operational difficulties. Last, but not least, Sweden’s parliament was affected, although they have not specified exactly how. As Sweden’s previous defense minister Peter Hultqvist said, “It’s big.“
The real number of affected agencies and companies will perhaps never be known. Being hacked is often seen as bad for business. If a company’s data is held for ransom, the company is put under two kinds of pressure – to pay and not to pay. Many companies just want to get it over with and restart business as usual. But paying the perpetrator, thereby encouraging more attacks, is also bad for business and shameful to boot – if it becomes known. For these reasons, companies don’t always report that they have been hacked. Not reporting an infiltration, however, decreases the chances that the hacker is apprehended.
Russian pompoms
In this case, many believe the hacker is known. Akira is the main character in a Japanese cyberpunk manga film of the same name. It is also the name of the hacker company suspected of being behind the Tietoevry attack. The Russian state is believed to be their main supporter and cheerleading section.
Russia could be playing the long game. By disrupting everyday services, from buying movie tickets to payroll processing, basic trust in society is eroded. When things don’t work as expected, uncertainty is created. In the end, the danger is that people may think that nothing – pluralist democracies included – can be counted on, and that complicated reality is too much work. Thinking in this way plays right into the hands of populist and autocratic regimes who promise to take care of things.
Just like after earthquakes, much rebuilding will be needed after this attack.
