Hackers Exploit Weak Password to Destroy 160-Year-Old Company

It is now believed that the reason a notorious hacking group was able to bring a Northamptonshire-based haulage company to its knees was likely due to a weak password being exploited.

The aftermath of the hack, which occurred in 2023, led to over 700 employees facing redundancy, with the company, KNP Logistics – approaching 160 years in business – going under.

500 lorries strong and operating under the ‘Knights of Old’ brand at the time, KNP is just one of many UK businesses struck by cyber crime, with recent marquee name victims including Harrods, Marks & Spencer, and the Co-Op.

The subject of a recent report on the BBC’s TV show Panorama, it is believed that a single weak password (of a KNP employee account) was exploited by hackers, granting them unauthorized access to the company’s computer system.

While KNP said it had complied with cyber security industry standards and held insurance against online attacks, it was unable to recover from what was about to become a major system breach.

The Akira hacking group reportedly behind the cyber hit carried out a ransomware attack, which involved the encryption of KNP’s data and locking of its internal system.

A note was left for the group’s victim, reading:

“If you’re reading this, it means the internal infrastructure of your company is fully or partially dead … Let’s keep all the tears and resentment to ourselves and try to build a constructive dialogue.”

While Akira didn’t mention their price for providing a decryption key (to unlock the encrypted system), a specialist ransomware negotiation firm estimated that the figure could be £5 million.

But KNP could not afford that kind of sum and, now suffering what appeared to be the permanent loss of its data, ultimately had to let go of 730 employees and file for administration.

Paul Abbott, director of KNP, believes the catalyst for the catastrophic cyber attack was most likely due to hackers guessing a weak password belonging to an employee’s account.

He has not informed the suspected account owner of this belief, however, deciding to keep the weighty news anonymous. “Would you want to know if it was you?” Abbott asked.

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