Major comic book company Diamond Comic Distributors is struggling to keep up with its planned shipments after being hit with a ransomware attack on Sunday.
In a statement, the company said its planned shipments for Wednesday would be delayed about two to four days throughout the country due to the attack; reorders are expected to resume within the next 72 hours. The delays will also affect international retailers.
The company said it was dealing with a ransomware attack affecting its order processing systems as well as its internal communications platforms.
“Our IT department and a team of third-party experts are working around the clock to address these issues and restore full operations,” Diamond Comic Distributors said.
“We want to assure you that customer data and financial information is not stored on our network, and as such, we have no reason to believe it has been impacted by this attack.”
Based in Maryland, Diamond Comic Distributors said it was working with Agility Recovery to deal with the incident and added that law enforcement has been contacted.
The company is one of the biggest print comic book distributors in the world, and hundreds of retailers depend on them for some of the biggest comics available.
Josh Rickard, security solutions architect at cybersecurity firm Swimlane, said the attack was evidence that — even without the theft of customer or business data — ransomware groups could still cause significant damage.
“Diamond Comic Distributors’ website has been temporarily taken down, and its ability to process customer orders has been disrupted, affecting not only Diamond Comic Distributors’ business and success, but also the other retailers it is responsible for selling several comic book publications to on a regular basis,” Rickard explained.
