Ten days after the cyber attack on Varta, production at the Swabian battery company's five plants is still largely at a standstill.

There is "the prospect of restarting the first parts of the plants from next week", Varta announced on Thursday in Ellwangen, Württemberg. Until then, employees will be busy with maintenance, servicing and preparatory work for the resumption of production, for which no IT systems are needed. The testing and recommissioning of the attacked IT systems is making initial progress. However, it is unclear when production will be fully back to normal.

The cyberattack will "possibly complicate, but not stop" the ongoing restructuring of the company. The damage cannot yet be quantified, explained Varta. It is also unclear whether and, if so, how much of it will be covered by insurers.

Varta was the victim of a hacker attack on the night of February 12-13. "It is now clear that an organized hacker group is behind the cyberattack, which succeeded in breaking through the high security standards of Varta's IT systems with a high level of criminal energy," the company explained. The company is still only accessible to a limited extent. The "Augsburger Allgemeine" newspaper reported on Wednesday that emails were now being received by Varta again, but could not yet be processed.

(Report by Alexander Hübner. Edited by Olaf Brenner. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)