Carmaker Nissan says UK plant hit by cyber attack

Production at Nissan’s manufacturing plant in Sunderland, northeast England, has been affected by a cyber attack that has hit nearly 100 countries, a spokesman for the Japanese carmaker said on Saturday.

“Like many organizations, our UK plant was subject to a ransomware attack affecting some of our systems on Friday evening. Our teams are working to resolve the issue,” said the spokesman.

He declined to confirm media reports that production at the plant, which employs 7,000, had been halted.

On Friday, cyber extortionists tricked victims into opening malicious malware attachments to spam emails that appeared to contain invoices, job offers, security warnings and other legitimate files.

The attack disrupted Britain’s health system and companies including carmaker Renault and global shipper FedEx.