Violent Braking In Juliet | Montreal Magazine

While the authorities fear an increase in the number of cyberattacks from Russia, the Bridgestone tire plant in Joliet was forced to stop its activities completely for two days.

On Sunday, the company’s management told its 1,300 employees in Quebec that “widespread computer failure (sic)” forced it to halt production. “Since this is a force majeure event, factory operations have been suspended,” read the note obtained by Newspaper.

Despite its endeavours, the plant failed to resume operations yesterday, as did many of the company’s other facilities in the United States and Latin America.

From Nashville, Tennessee, where Bridgestone is headquartered in North America, Director of Communications Emily Weaver tried to reassure at the end of the day yesterday, but was unable to set a date for production to resume.

Also in Alouette

She replied, “We are continuing to advance the investigation to determine the extent and nature of the incident, and will continue to work diligently to resolve any issues that may affect our business, data, colleagues and customers.”

The attack comes as the Alouette of Sept-Îles, the largest aluminum smelter on the continent, confirmed last Friday that a malfunction affected all of its computer systems.

“This outage appears to have been caused by a security incident related to the interference of an unauthorized third party,” the company said in a statement on Friday.

Coordinated attacks?

Are these attacks, as some believe, necessarily the result of hackers with Russian loyalties targeting organizations in countries allied to Ukraine, and their invasion of Russia?

Is it possible to imagine that these attacks are linked to the current conflict? Yes, answers Patrick R. Mathieu, cybersecurity expert and co-founder of HackFest. But to say we can be sure? No, it is much more difficult. »

He remembers that hackers settle into target organizations’ systems often three to six months before striking. Thus, associating these issues with the position adopted by NATO last week seems risky to him.

Alexis Doris Junkas, director of the Montreal office of research and development for ESET, a Slovakian company specializing in cybersecurity, agrees.

“We can’t rule that out,” he said. But nothing allows us to claim that this is also the case.

“Before you attribute these past and future attacks to one or more organizations of the same allegiance, you need to take the time to analyze each case, which may take longer than you think,” he adds. »