Nixon Williams hit by Cyber Security incident

[richy_rich]

Good Afternoon,

Further to the communication sent to you on 14th January 2022, we recently suffered a cyber security incident that impacted some of our key systems and caused significant disruption to our services. As soon as we identified the issue, we immediately took action to mitigate its impact with the support of external IT security specialists and are working round the clock to minimise disruption to our services and resume normal operations. In the meantime, we will continue to update you regularly about the progress we are making to restore our systems.


What about my personal information?
Update as at 9am today Monday 17th January 2022.

Please be reassured, we are aware of our obligations under data protection laws. While we are still in the early stages of our investigations, based on our current understanding of the incident there is no evidence that personal data has been removed from our system. We will provide an update on our investigation when we have more information to share, but we have been informed by our external advisors that this could take a number of weeks.

In the meantime, to ensure the safety and integrity of your data, we have suspended our systems and you will be unable to access Nixon Williams Vantage.

[Lance]

I wonder if they'll cough up any late filing payments their customers incur due to the outage.
Bad timing right now.

[Cr1spy]

there is no evidence that personal data has been removed

This isn't a physical ledger, the page wasn't torn out of the book!

I doubt many hackers would remove personal data from the breached incumbent. But they sure as hell would take a copy of it.

[gizzmo]

Good Afternoon,

Further to the communication sent to you on 14th January 2022, we recently suffered a cyber security incident that impacted some of our key systems and caused significant disruption to our services. As soon as we identified the issue, we immediately took action to mitigate its impact with the support of external IT security specialists and are working round the clock to minimise disruption to our services and resume normal operations. In the meantime, we will continue to update you regularly about the progress we are making to restore our systems.


What about my personal information?
Update as at 9am today Monday 17th January 2022.

Please be reassured, we are aware of our obligations under data protection laws. While we are still in the early stages of our investigations, based on our current understanding of the incident there is no evidence that personal data has been removed from our system. We will provide an update on our investigation when we have more information to share, but we have been informed by our external advisors that this could take a number of weeks.

In the meantime, to ensure the safety and integrity of your data, we have suspended our systems and you will be unable to access Nixon Williams Vantage.

word for word the same as the Parasol e-mail that came out at the same time....

[northernladuk]

So... NW, SJD and Parasol have been hit so would look like a coordinated attack on that group of companies? But Brookson isn't. Do they all use the same provider for their backend stuff or something? Someone has found an exploit in a certain platform and then gone after all the customers using that platform or what? Why have three different outfits owned by the same people been hit and why so many brollys/accountancy practices in such short succession?

There must be a reason but I don't know what it is. Can't be coincidence?

Judging by that list, the fact they got through to steal there stuff and didn't get put in a queue or had to wait six weeks for a response is pretty impressive to be fair.

[PerfectStorm]

Now is an excellent time to leave Nixon Williams. The difference is night and day.

[JHamp82]

Now is an excellent time to leave Nixon Williams. The difference is night and day.

I agree. its an excellent time to move on and look for another accountancy firm. I am with Gorilla Accounting and their service so far has been than other firms. FreeAgent as part of the subscription and same day response is great but feel free to look at other recommended accountants as well.

https://forums.contractoruk.com/acco...-requests.html

[Roll Out The Farrell]

On top of already filing my year end accounts late, I'm still waiting for my SA return to be processed and now this.

Is it easy to leave an accountant? Should I just cancel the direct debit and tell them I no longer require their services (once my year end accounts are done, of course) or do they need to play ball to do some kind of handover to whoever my new accountant might be?

I'd ask them but I'm sure the usual 2 week wait for a response has now gone up to 6 weeks!

[malvolio]

On top of already filing my year end accounts late, I'm still waiting for my SA return to be processed and now this.

Is it easy to leave an accountant? Should I just cancel the direct debit and tell them I no longer require their services (once my year end accounts are done, of course) or do they need to play ball to do some kind of handover to whoever my new accountant might be?

I'd ask them but I'm sure the usual 2 week wait for a response has now gone up to 6 weeks!

I'd let your new accountant deal with it, to be honest. Not worth the hassle of trying to hasten the handover, and the new people will have a legal right to the data. Just be very sure SJD have closed everything down. There may be some outstanding fees, don't forget you pay monthly for a full business year's service.

And I got my new people to redo the year end and SAR. Didn't trust SJD to get it right or on time.

[Roll Out The Farrell]

I'd let your new accountant deal with it, to be honest. Not worth the hassle of trying to hasten the handover, and the new people will have a legal right to the data. Just be very sure SJD have closed everything down. There may be some outstanding fees, don't forget you pay monthly for a full business year's service.

And I got my new people to redo the year end and SAR. Didn't trust SJD to get it right or on time.

So, presumably I need to leave before my company's year end then. (It's NW in my case).