A British company that specializes in making skin, bone, and organ grafts has temporarily closed its manufacturing plant in America following a cybersecurity breach.
Regenerative medical technology company Tissue Regenix Group PLC said on Tuesday that its computer systems and a third-party IT service provider in the United States were accessed without authorization. No details were given regarding how the incident occurred or when the company became aware that it had been compromised.
Tissue Regenix responded to the cybersecurity incident by taking the affected system offline and shutting down operations at its plant in Texas. The company has appointed forensic cybersecurity specialists to investigate how and when the breach occurred and said that it is in talks with the relevant legal authorities.
The cybersecurity incident is not believed to have affected any of Tissue Regenix's operations in the UK and is not thought to have impacted the company's financial systems.
"Tissue Regenix has taken precautionary steps, including taking affected systems offline. This has restricted access to certain business operations, including the company's ability in the short-term to continue manufacturing in its United States facility, which has been taken offline whilst the incident is being investigated," said a Tissue Regenix spokesperson.
"The company is engaged with its third-party IT service provider, the relevant legal authorities and cyber security experts to rectify the incident as quickly as possible and to minimize any impact on its operations. The time required to resolve the incident is currently unknown."
According to Reuters, news of the breach caused the share price of Tissue Regenix to tumble by as much as 22%.
Tissue Regenix was formed in 2006 as an offshoot of the University of Leeds. The company is based in the historical city of York. Tissue Regenix set up its base in America in the tail end of 2012.
The medical technology product that Tissue Regenix is known for producing is a special kind of tissue that can be used to repair worn-out or diseased human body parts. The tissue has been designed in such a way that the patient's body is unlikely to reject a graft.
The cyber-attack has come at a particularly bad time for Tissue Regenix, which said last Wednesday that its funding is not guaranteed beyond April.