A single compromised password can cost you your entire earnings, and this is what happened to a 158-year-old UK-based transport company, KNP. A ransomware gang brought down KNP, making 700 employees lose their jobs. KNP is just one of the UK businesses impacted by the rising attack of cyberattacks, with major brands like M&S, Co-op, and Harrods also on the list of victims.
According to a report by the BBC, hackers are suspected of getting access to the company’s computer systems by stealing an employee’s password. Once accessed, they encrypted critical data and locked the company’s internal systems, bringing operations to a halt. The attack was so severe that KNP’s director, Paul Abbott, confirmed that the business was unable to recover.
Abbott, however, has refrained from revealing the name of the employee whose password is believed to have been compromised. As reported, a gang of hackers, named Akira, hacked the system, making it inaccessible for the company’s staff. They even sent a chilling ransom note, “If you’re reading this, it means the internal infrastructure of your company is fully or partially dead… Let’s keep all the tears and resentment to ourselves and try to build a constructive dialogue.”
Though the ransomware note did not specify the amount, it is estimated to be around £5 million, a sum that KNP could not pay and was forced to shut down, losing all its data.
Also read: Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT score gold-level marks at Math Olympiad: Here’s what we know
According to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), KNP is not the only firm to suffer a ransomware attack. Other big names like M&S, Harrods, and Co-op have also suffered cyberattacks, with the data of 6.5 million members stolen. The National Crime Agency (NCA) warns that the problem is only getting worse. Suzanne Grimmer from the NCA said ransomware attacks have doubled to around 35-40 cases a week in just two years.