Last week, a 156-year-old freight company, Knights of Old (KNP) from the United Kingdom, was forced to close due to a cyberattack involving a weak password vulnerability by one of the company’s employees that allowed the company’s internal systems to be locked down by a malware attack.
The company had insurance for such incidents, but it was discovered that all of the company’s internal data and systems had been locked down, while all backup data and systems had been deleted. In order to get the company back up and running, they were asked to pay £5 million (~RM28.5 million) to get operations back on track.
Unfortunately, the company did not have that kind of money saved up, and has now closed with around 700 employees without a rice cooker.
This is just one of many horror stories about digital security today, as companies, government bodies and others have to deal with such cyberattacks on a daily basis.
The UK government has recently announced that it will stop certain government agencies and companies from paying ransoms for the restoration of data and operations if their systems are compromised. This is to ensure that hacking groups do not get what they want, and is expected to reduce the number of attacks on government systems and companies in the country.
The UK government has said that for such attacks, it will use law enforcement agencies such as the police to track down these criminals and bring them to justice.