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Eugene

(65,961 posts)
Mon Jul 21, 2025, 10:30 AM Jul 21

Weak password allowed hackers to sink a 158-year-old company

Source: BBC

Weak password allowed hackers to sink a 158-year-old company

21 July 2025

Richard Bilton
BBC Panorama

One password is believed to have been all it took for a ransomware gang to destroy a 158-year-old company and put 700 people out of work.

KNP - a Northamptonshire transport company - is just one of tens of thousands of UK businesses that have been hit by such attacks.

Big names such as M&S, Co-op and Harrods have all been attacked in recent months. The chief executive of Co-op confirmed last week that all 6.5 million of its members had had their data stolen.

In KNP's case, it's thought the hackers managed to gain entry to the computer system by guessing an employee's password, after which they encrypted the company's data and locked its internal systems.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2gx28815wo

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