German information technology services company Bitmarck Technik GmbH has been knocked offline after being hit by a cyberattack on Sunday.

The company, a leading provider of IT services to the German healthcare industry, said on its temporary website that the attack had targeted its internal systems. Consequently, it took all customer service, internal systems and some data centers offline to conduct an impact analysis. Bitmarck added that it’s currently in the process of bringing its systems back online step by step in accordance with a security- and priority-oriented process.

Bitmarck claims that it has no knowledge of customer or personal information being stolen and that its system that stores patient data was not targeted in the attack. The company has also informed authorities and consulted with external security experts.

According to a report from The Stack, Bitmarck customers affected include SBK, one of Germany’s largest health insurers, which has seen its phone, email and app services completely knocked offline. The attack on Bitmarck is apparently not the first this year, with an attack in January resulting in the theft of data belonging to more than 300,000 insurance policyholders.

Without further details, the actions by Bitmarck in shutting down untargeted systems would suggest ransomware, which is known to move laterally through an organization once it gets through the front door. Then again, the company may have just been overly cautious.

If it is ransomware, it’s likely data may have been stolen, with Daniel Selig, security automation Architect at Swimlane Inc. He told SiliconANGLE that “although the company stresses that there are currently no signs of data theft, it is common for a data breach to be confirmed weeks or even months after the initial attack.”

Selig added that organizations such as Bitmarck must implement adequate cybersecurity measures to ensure that customers receive the assistance they require and that IT systems remain functional. “In the event of a cyberattack, the recovery process can be lengthy, and there may be penalties for failing to identify and report unauthorized access,” he said.

Some of the systems Bitmarck uses were discussed in an interview between Sebastian Mass, senior enterprise architect at Bitmarck and theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s livestreaming studio, in July. In the interview, Mass explained how the company was using Red Hat tools to bring its vision for mobile applications to life.

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