One of the largest private logistics companies in the UK, KNP Logistics Group, is being forced to close, following a serious disruption to its operations caused by a ransomware attack earlier this year.
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Kettering-based KNP Logistics Group will be forced to lay off more than 700 staff as administrators step in, highlighting the serious impact cyber on real life. The attack in June appears to have affected the company's ability to secure crucial new funding.
"Despite being one of the UK's largest privately owned logistics groups, KNP fell victim to a ransomware attack earlier this year which caused significant disruption," joint manager Rajnesh Mittal of FRP Advisory Trading told the BBC.
«Against the backdrop of difficult market conditions and without being able to secure urgent investment due to the attack, the business was unable to continue. We will support all affected staff at this difficult time.».
Only the group's Nelson Distribution company will survive the sale, while a small team of staff will remain to help wind down the company's remaining operations.
KNP was created in 2016 following the merger of Nelson Distribution and Knights of Old, two transportation companies with a long history. Knights of Old since 1865 and Nelson Distribution in more recent years.
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The company was initially compromised by the Akira. However, it is unclear whether they were able to access the decryptor for the ransomware released by Avast in July, according to Stephen Gates, senior cybersecurity specialist at Horizon3.ai.
"The most effective way to defeat ransomware attacks is to continually assess your own infrastructure, find the attack paths an attacker would take, and then fix those problems and validate that your fixes defeated the discovered attack paths," he explained.
«Once you are done, repeat the process regularly to discover new attack paths. No other defensive or offensive method of reducing the risk of a successful ransomware attack against your organization will be as successful as the method explained here.“
William Wright, CEO of Closed Door Security, pointed out that hundreds of families across the UK will ultimately suffer the negative consequences of the breach .
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"When we think of cybercrime ,very few people understand how bad things can be, but this is an example of the harsh, but very real, consequences of attacks," he added. "Sometimes the financial losses and data losses and downtime are irreparable."
