Network attack batters Christie Digital

Production halted in Kitchener due to malware incident

KITCHENER — Christie Digital is recovering from a “worldwide” computer attack that led to production being halted and workers being sent home.

Dave Paolini, the company’s public relations manager, said the attack was a network incident involving malware that was felt across Christie’s international operations.

“The incident was worldwide but we’ve recovered quickly,” he said Thursday.

The company specializes in projection technology and digital display systems. Its head office is in California, while engineering and manufacturing are based in Kitchener. There is a second manufacturing facility in China. Christie is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan’s Ushio, Inc.

Locally, some production ground to a halt because machines and equipment that are software-controlled were affected, Paolini said.

“The good news is that we’ve recalled half of our hourly staff, and the rest will be back in the next few days.”

Paolini would not provide details about when the attack occurred, its duration or whether it was targeted.

“It was basically a network server issue involving malware,” he said. “We have reported (the incident) to the authorities and are working with them.”

Unfortunately, significant cyberattacks like this aren’t that uncommon, said Rob Martin, vice-president of security operations at Cambridge-based cybersecurity firm eSentire. “It’s something that goes under-reported.”

To date, Christie Digital has not been a customer of eSentire, which provides managed detection and response services to about 700 midmarket customers spanning all industries.

“It’s opportunistic activity, largely,” Martin said. “The old saying adheres here — an ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure.”

In just the past six months, eSentire detected more than 1.4 billion “raw signals” in its clients’ digital traffic, representing potential threats or unwanted activity. That was filtered down to a few thousand more serious attempts that required intervention, Martin said.

In an interview with IT World Canada posted online in mid-November, Christie’s senior manager of global infrastructure, Scott Elliott, discussed the steps the company takes to protect and back up its data.

The story stated that Christie has been able to recover more than once from ransomware attacks thanks to its backups. Paolini wouldn’t comment on whether attacks had occurred in the past.

“It’s a costly exercise to clean up from,” Martin noted generally.

“It can get into the tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars very quickly.”

Christie said it’s confident that customer information was not affected in the recent incident. Systems are coming back online, products are shipping and customers are being taken care of, Paolini said.

Christie also engaged outside experts to help speed up the recovery process.

“Lessons learned from this experience will be applied to our standard operating procedures,” Paolini said.

The company’s top priority is to ensure that all systems are safe, secure and restored to normal operation, he said.

“It’s an unfortunate fact of life nowadays that these events happen,” Paolini said.

“It’s annoying, but we’re up and running and doing well.”