How one Yorkshire business lost £70,000 to online scammers

When Simon’s business advisory consultancy suffered a ransomware cyber-attack in September 2019, it almost cost him everything.

The business employed 25 staff across offices in Yorkshire and the North East.

That Wednesday was just like any normal day, nothing unusual, until his staff started to report that emails weren’t getting through and then access to the server started to be denied.

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As Simon was reaching for the phone to speak to his IT support, he got the email.

Online crime costs UK business billions of pounds.Online crime costs UK business billions of pounds.
Online crime costs UK business billions of pounds.

His server and its remote cloud back up had been compromised by professional hackers who were demanding £100,000 in a Bitcoin ransom to release a code and restore access.

Ten days of almost total business shutdown followed whilst Simon engaged a team of IT specialists who tried to find workarounds, as well as negotiate with the hackers.

Simon did eventually get back control of his business, a Bitcoin ransom was paid as part of the deal but the experienced negotiators brought the amount down significantly. Negotiations prolonged the hiatus and, as Bitcoin valuations fluctuated wildly so did the hacker’s demands, causing more delays. Even setting up a Bitcoin account from scratch to facilitate the transaction isn’t as straightforward or as quick as it sounds.

The total financial cost for Simon by the end was near £70,000 with the specialist IT fees, his staff unable to work and lost business revenue.