Even though the media often mentions the risk of businesses folding due to a cyberattack, attempts to find examples of where a cyberattack really was the sole explanation/cause are often hard to find. Whether there were any other financial factors in the case reported here that contributed to the firm going into administration is unknown to DataBreaches, but it sounds like the ransomware attack claimed by Akira in June of 2023 may have been the proximal cause. James Grant and Annabel Amos of BBC report:
The director of a 160-year-old haulage firm put out of business by a cyber-attack has urged companies to be on their guard.
Paul Abbott was on the board at Knights of Old, based in Kettering in Northamptonshire, which went into administration in 2023 after critical financial data was corrupted.
He said: “We felt we were in a very good place in terms of our security, our protocols, the measures we’d gone to to protect the business.”
A ransom note from a hacker group was found buried in IT systems at Knights of Old.
Despite efforts to maintain operations manually, the attack damaged key data, making it impossible to meet reporting deadlines set by lenders.
And so the company, which opened in 1865 and was employing 730 people by 2023, was forced into administration.
Read more at BBC.
Related: Ransomware Gangs’ Merciless Attacks Bleed Small Companies Dry