Arran Brewery targeted by online hackers

A Scottish beer company has lost months of data, after it was the victim of a ransomware attack.

Arran Brewery was hit with a virus contained in a job application, with hackers demanding money to get the server back up and running.

Managing Director Gerald Michaluk explains what happened: “The virus was introduced in an email but how this happened is very devious and it is clear we were targeted. We advertise job vacancies on our website, one such job vacancy was for a credit control and finance assistant post, now filled. Out of the blue we started getting applicants for the post from all over the country and the world. I assumed one of my colleagues had advertised the post. However, this was not the case; the attackers had taken our website vacancy and posted it on some international jobs site. We were getting three of four emails a day all with attached CVs in amongst there genuine job seekers was the virus and when the CV was opened it took effect, being so new a virus our virus protection software did not pick up the attack.

“The software then started to encrypt our system starting with our backups and working I was through the files on our computers and then central server.”

The company was then faced with a choice of paying the hackers, losing the data, or bringing in professionals to deal with the issue. Gerald says: “We choose to bring in an expert who, having identified the problem, was able to eliminate the virus and restore part of our system. He’s confident in due course when the key is cracked will be able to restore the lost data.

“It would be unwise to pay the ransom even when it is a relatively small amount compared to the IT consultant’s costs of fixing the problem. There is no guarantee the criminals will provide a key, or that they won’t be back again for more money.

“The lesson really is not to open email attachments if you’re not sure where they’ve come from."