What happened to Lojas Americanas and Submarino? 541wr

Six days after the hacker attack, Lojas Americanas and Submarino websites are back online, but they carry financial consequences and, above all, show how cybersecurity practices need continuous optimization, especially within the biggest players in Brazilian e-commerce. 643o4y

The partial return of the platforms was recorded on Wednesday (23), after a possible hacker attack brought down all the systems of the Americanas SA, also impacting the Submarino, Shoptime, Now Supermarket and Sou Barato, all belonging to the same parent company.

In this article, you understand more about the financial and operational impacts of the alleged invasion, claimed by the group Lapsus, who claimed to have access to the platforms' internal chat and payment method. This is the same group responsible for the attack on the Ministry of Health last year.

What happened to Lojas Americanas? 6a6e5o

Americanas SA released a note last Sunday (20) explaining the suspension of part of the platform servers for security reasons when identifying an “unauthorized access”. The problems started in the early hours of the previous day (19), when the Submarino and Americanas sites were temporarily offline. The same announcement was made on Monday, this time about the proactive suspension of part of the servers of the Sou Barato and Shoptime sites.

Thus, the websites of Americanas, Submarino, Shoptime, Supermercado Now and Sou Barato remained unavailable until Wednesday (23), adding up to practically four days of stoppage of digital operations, including the applications of such platforms, while the physical stores had their normal operation.

With the return of the websites to consumers, the group released a note to investors saying that it was the victim of a “security incident”, but without further details about the event.

Operational and financial consequences of the hacker attack 211x1t

With the websites and applications back, warning banners were placed at the top of the Lojas Americanas and Submarino homepages: “we are coming back gradually, making products and functionalities available progressively, so you can buy safely”. Some consumers claimed slow loading of offers on category pages.

Now, when it comes to the financial impact, the hacker attack proves to be even more harmful. On Monday, Americanas SA shares closed down 6,61%, a number that continued to fall the following day, in which the shares operated down 5,4%.

Data from the consultancy Economatica estimate that the company lost almost R$2 billion in market value on the Brazilian Stock Exchange, adding up to a R$3,48 billion drop on Tuesday, the last day of total stoppage. The group ended the trading session valued at R$ 27,9 billion.

In this way, it is still not possible to know the amount of lost sales during the entire suspension, but it is already possible to have a glimpse of how the hacker attack had a strong impact on one of the biggest players in national retail. Another determining factor for the complicated scenario in which the holding company finds itself is the volume of partners in its marketplaces that also lost sales.

Eleven Financial's head of research, Carlos Daltozo, says the sites' unavailability may have caused an estimated loss of at least BRL 50 million per day only on the company's own products, in an interview with Exame. When taking into the sale of third parties, the number rises to approximately R$ 100 million.

A report by XP Investimentos released on Monday shows that it may be too early to assess the potential impact on the group's results, noting that it is important to monitor to see how long it will take to normalize operations.

Attack motivations 5h474v

The hacker attack claim made by lapsus group happened on the same morning as the invasion, through a message in English published on the hackers' Telegram channel. Around 3 am, the text read: “I think the shopping sites for B2W Americanas and Submarino are having problems lol”.

While little is known about the definitive motivation for the hacker invasion, IT and cybersecurity experts continue with speculative opinions about what happened to Lojas Americanas that help to understand why hacker groups like this continue to attack large companies and institutions.

Most hunches point to search for fame and, mainly, the financial gain, since this type of attack usually results in the sale of the data obtained or in the encryption of the same, demanding the payment of a ransom on the part of the company. An example of a “data hijacking” case was when an IT giant and other companies had their systems attacked by the Maze ransomware, which specializes in hacking corporate networks. Some refused to give in to the blackmail of criminals and, as a result, had their data released on the Internet. There were 50 GB of internal information exposed in the Dark Web.

It is worth noting that most victims of the Lapsus group – including the Americanas SA group – host their servers on the Amazon. The exception appears at the Post Office, which is hosted by Algar Telecom. Specialist Luiz Henrique Machado Mello, in an interview with Ciso Advisor, believes that the attack was carried out through DNS hijacking, “where DNS queries are incorrectly resolved to redirect s to sites of interest to attackers. To carry out the attack, cybercriminals install malware on s' computers, take control of routers, or intercept and hack DNS communication.”

Consumer data at risk? 581a2u

Americanas says customer data was not affected. However, if you have already purchased from one of the Americanas SA virtual stores, there are some precautions and cybersecurity measures to follow to that there is no type of risk, according to experts. They recommend temporarily blocking ed cards and changing s.

with the tool of Central Bank - Registrar You can also check open current s and loans made using your F. As for the company's role in this regard, it is mandatory by law to provide transparent information to the consumer about the security risks caused by the attack. In addition, platforms must have accessible means and channels of for tracking orders or facilitating cancellation.

Thus, Americanas released a note on Thursday (24) with a plan to around your virtual services, with measures to serve customers affected by the stoppage. Service channels will have extended opening hours and exchange deadlines goes from 30 to 45 days, in addition to reinforcing that claims for delay will be dealt with within two business days.

Casas Bahia jokes about the event with “Caiu lá?” 52132u

Direct competitor of Lojas Americanas, the Bahia Houses sent s who have the company’s app a push notification with “Did you fall there?” followed by a laughing emoji at 17:20 pm on Monday (21), three days after the sites were suspended. The content was finalized with the hashtag #RindoComRespeito.

The company reversed the notification, deleting the message along with publishing a note regretting what had happened. “We apologize for the error, which was corrected as soon as it was detected and impacted a tiny base of 0,001% of s of the brand's application”, in a statement sent to InfoMoney.

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Sources: IG, InfoMoney, Examination