WPP crippled by cyberattack
Global advertising giant WPP has been debilitated by the ransomware attack that swept across the world overnight.
While the Australian operation’s website has remained online, most of the organisation’s sites across Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific are offline and it is understood all WPP staff globally have been instructed not to log onto the corporate network until further notice.
The company is part way through a digital transformation project which included a seven year, $1.25 billion service contract with IBM to provide a hybrid cloud computing platform for the WPP’s operations.
In WPP’s 2016 annual report, the company identified cyber and data security as a risk but stated “the IT Transformation project will enhance the group’s data security.”
It appears WPP’s Australian websites were not compromised as they were running on an independent, cloud-based system rather than the company’s centralised on-premise systems which appear to run most of the organisation’s IT infrastructure.
WPP’s Sydney representatives have been contacted by Mumbrella for comment but had not replied on how the Australian operations have been affected at the time of publication.
In a statement to Mumbrella Asia, WPP’s Singapore spokesperson said: “IT systems in several WPP companies have been affected by a suspected cyber attack. We are assessing the situation, taking appropriate measures and will update as soon as possible.”
Contractors and employees have been sharing their ‘black screens of death’ at various offices around the world under the hashtag #wpphack with one staffer at a WPP subsidiary office in Detroit posting how staff were enjoying cable TV while waiting to log onto their networks.
https://twitter.com/brithebrokegirl/status/879714838733352960
The latest cyberattack, dubbed “NotPetya” has debilitated a range of major corporations including Danish Shipping giant Maersk, Russian oil conglomerate Rosneft and US pharmaceutical company Merck.
NotPetya exploits the same system vulnerability as the Wannacry ransomware but unlike the earlier outbreak spreads using Microsoft’s administrator tools. Microsoft have made patches available for all systems from Windows XP and Server 2003 onwards.
WPP created a shared services business in 2015 called CoreTech https://www.wppcoretech.com It partnered with IBM to manage all the IT platforms including desktops.
There would be a number of people having sleepless nights as a result of that decision.
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I hate to say that outsourcing IT to cut costs has blown up in their face but…
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From the looks of the social media sharing, WPP’s staff look totally gutted at all the down time!
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This isn’t a “hack”, it’s the result of a systematic failure to protect against and mitigate some terribly common and well-known risks involved in having staff and an internet connection.
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Nothing but problems since WPP outsourced their IT to save money.
Schadenfreude
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