Hearing aid company Demant expects financial losses following a cyberattack.

Demant, the manufacturer of Oticon hearing aids, revealed that its network was disrupted by a cybersecurity incident on September 3, 2019. As a result, the company expects a loss of 650 million kroner (or over USD 71 million).

As soon as the incident was discovered, Demant shut down its systems across multiple sites and business units. Even though the IT team responded quickly, production, research and development, and distribution processes were affected. Since Demant kept data backups, it was able to restore its system to its original state. The production lines in Poland and Mexico have been able to recover and continue working as usual. However, Demant is still working to restore normalcy to production sites in Denmark and France. 

The company decided to analyze the financial impact of the incident. “Our current preliminary assessment indicates a total negative financial impact on EBIT in 2019 in the range of DKK 550-650 million, which includes the deduction of an expected insurance coverage of approx. DKK 100 million. This impact is predominately related to the estimated lost sales and weakening of growth momentum. Included in the financial impact, we expect to incur costs of DKK 50 million directly related to the incident,” said the company.

Cyberattacks can be costly. Protect yourself against cybersecurity disasters like this by investing in a tool that will protect your network from brute-force attacks, ransomware threats, and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Download ManageEngine Log360, a tool that helps combat both internal and external security attacks.