La Maison Liégeoise a housing association in Belgium has suffered a serious computer attack. This Liège-based social housing company was specifically targeted by skilled cybercriminals recently. The disruptive cyberattack reportedly occurred over the past weekend impacting its operations. As a result the company can no longer be reached by telephone or by email. Nothing has worked correctly at the Belgian company since Monday of this current week. It is important to note La Maison Liégeoise manages nearly 4,000 social housing units. These numerous housing units are home to approximately 10,000 people in Liège, Belgium. All of these residents are now unfortunately directly impacted by this major service disruption.
Managing director Arnaud Abinet explained this incident is a typical ransomware-type cyberattack. He stated the attackers’ main principle is to encrypt the company’s valuable data. This encryption prevents La Maison Liégeoise from accessing its own critical information systems. To decrypt the data the hackers then demanded a significant sum of money. They specifically demanded a ransom payment of two bitcoins, which is about 200,000 euros. However the Belgian social housing company has clearly refused to pay this ransom demand. Arnaud Abinet confirmed it is not their intention to give in to this blackmail.
The exact origin of where this ransomware attack was launched from is not yet known.
An external information technology company is now trying hard to fix these technical problems. They are diligently working to resolve the widespread system issues caused by the attack. However it is currently impossible to say when everything will be fully operational again. The timeline for a full return to completely normal company operations remains quite uncertain. La Maison Liégeoise has officially reported this cyberattack incident to Belgium’s Cyber Unity. Cyber Unity is also actively looking for the source and origin of this attack. The Belgian housing company is primarily focusing all its efforts on system data recovery.
Their main immediate goal is to safely restore all affected services for their tenants.
In the meantime La Maison Liégeoise has implemented several important interim service measures. These temporary measures are for people who wish to contact the housing association. A face-to-face customer service option is provided every morning from 9 a.m. to noon. This in-person service is also available on Wednesday afternoons from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Therefore it is still possible for tenants to get direct assistance today if needed. Additionally an on-call telephone number specifically for emergencies has now been fully activated. This emergency line ensures that urgent tenant needs can still be effectively addressed. These temporary support measures will continue throughout the ongoing widespread service outage period.
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