Lojas Renner, Brazil's largest clothing chain, hit by ransomware

 The cyber ransomware group RansomExx is believed to be behind the attack.

Lojas Renner, Brazil's biggest apparel store, suffered an assault by ransomware which rendered some of its IT systems inaccessible.

On Thursday the 19th of August, Lojas Renner reported the event first. The assault led to the closing of the physical lojas roenner shops throughout Brazil, according to local media and bloggers. The business nevertheless submitted a second statement the following day to dissipate suspicions and reassure shareholders of the continuing operation of all the shops, which impacted just the e-Commerce segment.

Lojas Renner did not provide specifics about the assault, but the cyber ransomexx organisation, RansomExx, may, by means of Tivit, the biggest supplier of digital and IT services in Brazil, have accessed the company's computers under one of the Brazilian blogs. However, officials of Tivit disputed this allegation in an interview with CNN Brazil Business and made sure that their corporate Network and servers were not compromised.

While it acknowledged the cyber assault, its business has attempted to downplay its importance by saying it has not compromised or encrypted its core database. Whether the assailants have succeeded to take data from hacked servers that mostly hold data from e-commerce sites has not nevertheless been revealed. If RansomExx was really engaged, the gang probably took the material before it was encrypted.

Lojas Renner paid the extortionists $20 million according to the unnamed The Record source, although the business itself has not responded.

In any event, it could simply be paid out by Lojas Renner. With more than 600 shops in three countries, the business is one of the biggest in South America, with the Renner, Camicado, Youcom and Ashua brands.