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.
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.
I hate to say that outsourcing IT to cut costs has blown up in their face but…
From the looks of the social media sharing, WPP’s staff look totally gutted at all the down time!
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.
Nothing but problems since WPP outsourced their IT to save money.
Schadenfreude