ZURICH - Beyond Gravity, the state-owned aerospace supplier spun off from the Ruag defence group in 2022, has been the target of a cyberattack. The company said on Friday that it had found the first indications of malicious activity in its IT environment on 12 August and that a highly professional actor is believed to be behind the intrusion.
The investigation is being run with the Federal Office for Cyber Security and the IT security firm Mandiant. Whoever is responsible has not been identified. The company has filed a criminal complaint and said it has stepped up its security measures while forensic teams search the affected devices for traces of the attackers.
Seven weeks of silence, explained
The gap between discovery and disclosure was deliberate, a spokesperson told the AWP news agency. In cyberattacks, thoroughness takes precedence over speed: announcing too early would have risked tipping off the intruders and compromising the forensic work. Security specialists generally accept that logic, though the delay will be noted in Bern, where the company is ultimately owned by the Confederation.
Beyond Gravity employs several thousand people and builds satellite structures, separation systems and launcher components for European and international space programmes. Its order books sit at the intersection of civil spaceflight and security-sensitive technology, the kind of target that has drawn state-linked hacking groups across Europe in recent years.
A pattern, not an exception
The disclosure lands in a week when parliament closed an autumn session that included new money for cybersecurity, and days after the government restated its ambition to harden critical infrastructure. Whether the attackers reached design data or confined themselves to office systems is precisely what the forensic work is meant to establish. The company says it will communicate again when the investigation allows.