BUFFALO, N.Y. — Workers at the Aurubis manufacturing plant in Buffalo were laid off following a cyber attack at the company.
The company, which is based in Germany, released a statement on its website Friday about the cyber attack on its IT systems.
It says this was part of a larger attack affecting the metals and mining industry in Europe. The German government cybersecurity is assisting in the ongoing investigation..
The attack caused a number of Aurubis sites to be shut down and disconnected from the internet as a preventative measure.
The extent of the attack is still being assessed, and while Aurubis says its goal is to keep production and procurement of materials running, it does not have any information on when its systems will be back up and running again.
It says its production of copper wire and other metal materials products along with environmental protection facilities at smelter sites are up and running, The firm hopes to have solutions in place to make the company's full services available to its customers.
The Aurubis plant is located on Military Road in Buffalo. Its spokesperson would not say how many workers at the Buffalo plant were affected by the layoff, or how long they would be out of work.
WGRZ also reached out to the United Steelworkers Union which represents over 300 hourly employees at the Aurubis Buffalo plant. But they did not respond to our request to again ask how many workers might be affected or how long any layoffs might last. We did see some cars in the guarded parking lot of the plant on Monday so apparently some staffers are still on the job. .