Spanish business customer solution giant Atento suffers cyber-attack in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Madrid, Spain-based Atento in Brazil is the latest victim of cybercriminal attacks on corporations in the country over the past two weeks. On Monday (18), the multinational reported it had suffered a cyber-attack on its systems in the country and that it temporarily interrupted services to local customers.

Atento reported that its security team was able to identify the threat and was “working to contain it, acting to ensure the security of the affected environments before bringing them back online.”

After Porto Seguro, on Thursday (14), and CVC, on October 2, this is the third cyber-attack on large companies in the country in the last two weeks.

On Thursday (14), Porto Seguro reported having been the target of an attempted cyberattack, which caused instability in service channels and some systems. The cyber-attack on CVC, which occurred on Saturday (2), made the company’s call center temporarily unavailable.

Atento did not inform the type of threat that affected its systems. The most common attacks on Brazilian companies have been of the ransomware type, in which malicious code infiltrates the companies’ systems until it identifies and encrypts servers with sensitive data, demanding ransom for its release in most cases.

The list of publicly traded companies that have been victims of data hijacking attacks since the pandemic began includes Natura & Co, Braskem, Cosan, Embraer, Prudential, Westwing, JBS, Grupo Fleury, and Lojas Renner.

ATENTO A GLOBAL LEADER

Atento is a global provider of customer relationship management (CRM) and business process outsourcing (BPO) services, including customer care, sales, collections, back office, and technical support.

The company is the largest provider in Latin America, and among the top five providers globally, based on revenues. The company tops the Latin American market with a 17.3% market share at the regional level according to Frost & Sullivan. Atento’s CEO is Carlos López-Abadía.

Since 1999, the company has developed its business model in 13 countries where it employs 150,000 people.

Atento has over 400 clients to whom it offers CRM/BPO services through multiple channels. Atento’s clients are mostly multinational corporations in sectors such as telecommunications, banking, and financial services, health, retail and public administrations, among others.

The company trades under the symbol ATTO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and operates through three segments: EMEA, Americas, and Brazil.

With information from Valor