The UK’s largest ready-meal provider, Wiltshire Farm Foods, announced this week that its systems have been crippled by a cyber attack.
In a statement, the Trowbridge-based organisation said it was “currently experiencing severe difficulties” with its IT network.
The disruption has caused major problems for the delivery of Meals on Wheels, a service that brings food to the elderly and vulnerable.
Wiltshire Farm Foods’ parent company, Apetito, produces and delivers 900,000 meals and puddings a week in the UK, and the organisation has advised anyone expecting a delivery this week to contact their local depot.
“Unfortunately, as our systems are not currently working, we will be unable to make many deliveries in the next few days. We are also unable to contact customers personally as we do not have access to their telephone numbers,” it added.
How did the cyber attack occur?
Although Wiltshire Farm Foods has revealed few details about the incident, cyber security experts believe that it bears the hallmarks of ransomware.
Ransomware is a type of cyber attack in which criminal hackers plant malicious code on the victim’s systems, which cripples services and encrypts files. The attackers then demand a payment – typically paid in bitcoin – for a decryption key.
“They’re not saying it, but [it’s] ransomware,” the researcher Kevin Beaumont said on Twitter.
“The new trend in ransomware is not talking about it, which will surely help matters,” he added, noting his sarcasm.
Indeed, organisations’ most powerful tool in combating ransomware is effective communication. The greater awareness there is of ransomware ..
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