The Varta company is difficult to reach on Wednesday. E-mails remain unanswered, you call, no one answers, all you hear is a quick toot. Hackers have largely paralyzed the battery manufacturer from Ellwangen in Baden-Württemberg. Production is at a standstill in the three German plants, at the headquarters, in Dischingen and Nördlingen, where Varta produces the cells for its batteries, and also at the locations in Romania and Indonesia, where the battery packs are assembled.
When Varta’s IT department discovered the attack on Tuesday night, it immediately shut down the systems to avoid major damage. They are now trying to find out how extensive the damage actually is in a quickly convened task force together with external IT security specialists in Ellwangen. Who broke into the network and why? And most importantly: How long will it take until Varta can restore its batteries as usual? Questions that the crisis team, which also includes IT forensic experts, now has to answer.
In the meantime, normal business is out of the question for the company whose batteries with the yellow triangle can be bought in any supermarket. A spokesman, who can finally be reached via cell phone, says that they are currently checking whether Varta can process finished orders that the machines in the production plants have already received without a software connection. Anyone who works in administration works from home with a disability. Many people can communicate internally, but cannot make calls via the system-bound landline, incoming emails are not delivered, but even those sent, for example to customers, arrive. Not every employee is affected equally.
Varta has been in trouble before
One thing is certain: the cyber attack will cost the traditional battery company a lot of money, especially because of lost orders. And that at a time when the people of Ellwangen are struggling badly anyway. Gone are the golden days when sales rose and rose, mainly because of the exclusive contract for microbatteries in Apple Airpods. Around two years ago, Apple brought in other battery manufacturers for its Bluetooth headphones – and Varta immediately slipped into the red. In addition to the reduced demand, there were unstable supply chains for raw materials such as lithium, which also became more expensive, as did energy. In 2022, Varta stopped plans for a giant factory for car batteries – too expensive. The management restructured and optimized the supply chain and cut 800 of 5,000 jobs worldwide last year.
Sales then increased in the third quarter of 2023. For the full-year balance sheet, which is expected at the end of March, the shareholders of the SDax company are hoping for better news than that from Tuesday, when Varta announced ad hoc: Hackers have attacked us.