Car rental giant Sixt facing disruptions due to a cyberattack

​Car rental giant Sixt was hit by a weekend cyberattack causing business disruptions at customer care centers and select branches.

Sixt is a German-based vehicle rental, car sharing, and ride-hailing service provider operating about two thousand locations in over 105 countries.

Sixt announced today that they suffered a cyberattack on April 29th that forced them to restrict access to all IT systems, except for those crucial for continuing business like the main website and the apps.

This shut down of IT systems is causing business disruption for Sixt customers, agents, and service points, but according to the firm, the impact has been kept to a minimum.

“Impacts on the company, its operations and services have been minimized to provide business continuity for customers.

However, temporary disruptions, in particular in customer care centers and selective branches, are likely to occur in the short term.” - Sixt

According to German media, most car bookings from Friday morning were carried out using pen and paper as systems were down.

Moreover, clients who called the company heard a recorded message telling them, “Due to a technical problem, we are currently unavailable and can only process e-mail inquiries with a delay.”

With the tourist season approaching in the Northern hemisphere, large companies engaging in tourism, like Sixt, are bound to face more trouble from malicious actors like ransomware gangs.

For now, no further details about the type of cyberattack have been provided, and Sixt was limited to saying it continues its investigations with the help of internal and external experts.

The firm’s announcement also asks customers for their understanding and patience and promises to provide further updates on the matter soon.

Bleeping Computer has emailed Sixt with questions about the attack and will update this post if we receive a response.