Brookson/SJD/Nixon Williams down today as well?

[cojak]

Brookson hit also today

Just putting it out there if people come here looking for any info.

[cojak]

WTFH found this on LinkedIn

At least Fahey has got his message out fairly quickly on LI & Twitter...
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update...8384323780609/

[Noiro]

I'm sure they're busy dealing with the attack, but would have been nice if they'd informed their contractors proactively. I had to email them to be sent a copy of that announcement.

[JHamp82]

Just putting it out there if people come here looking for any info.

Best time to move to another accountancy firm I guess. Below is a link of recommended accountants in case you haven't seen it.

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

[Paralytic]

WTFH found this on LinkedIn

Why am i sceptical in their claims that they managed to contain the attack, yet their phone lines are still down...

[GregRickshaw]

Email one

Dear customer,

As I am sure you aware our industry has experienced several high-profile cyber-attacks over the last few weeks, in many cases disabling businesses for weeks.

Last night the same aggressive attack was applied to the Brookson Group network. Fortunately, our network defences spotted and contained the attack immediately and this allowed us to contain the impact and take the necessary preventative measures to ensure no data was removed.

This type of attack is extremely aggressive so to ensure our customers and supplier data integrity is maintained, we have taken the proactive steps to disable all the Brookson services from accessing external networks.

Our technical and security teams have been working through the night and continue to validate our network infrastructure. We have also enlisted the services of a dedicated digital forensic provider to validate our network infrastructure before we re-enable any services.

We will look to restore all services as quickly as possible focusing on those with time critical dependencies such as our umbrella payroll as a priority.

Our objective is to ensure all customers expecting payment on Friday do receive them.
Hopefully you can appreciate there is a fine balance between pace and security, and we will do everything in our power to ensure minimal disruption is felt to our customer base and provide regular updates.

This incident has been reported to the UK National Cyber Security Center.

Whilst our phone system has been impacted and will remain offline until normal service resumes, our e mail communications remain open as usual.

We thank you for your support and understanding and we will provide further updates throughout the day.

On behalf of Brookson,


The Brookson Team
Brookson One

And Later

Dear customer,

Please find below a status update on the previously communicated cyber-attack to the Brookson Group.

Our digital forensic partners are now well underway combing through the Brookson Group Infrastructure to ensure a safe removal of the cyber-attack is completed as quickly as possible. The output of this activity is the production of a safe road map detailing the reactivation of our infrastructure, and although this is a very slow and methodical process it is vital to ensure the continued protection of our customer and supplier data. No data has been extracted from the Brookson Group network.

As it stands, we do not currently have the detailed timeline and how that translates to operational services, but we will share this as soon as we are in receipt of it.

In addition to thisemail, we are also ensuring these updates are shared across all the Brookson Group social channels to make it as easy as possible to receive updates for our customers and suppliers.

Just to confirm from my previous update, the Brookson telephony service is an IP hosted system so the disconnection of the Brookson network to the outside world is why our phone lines are not working, emails are protected from this disruption. Our Connect, WorkforceManager and IR35 portals are also disconnected as a result of our precautionary measures.

We are contacting all our recruitment agency partners and have contingency plans in place for payroll services in case the delays are longer than anticipated.

We are very touched by the sentiment of our customers and the industry in general in terms of the offerings of support for dealing with this debilitating, malicious attack and we will of course share our defence strategy with any future impacted parties once fully resolved.

Please use [email protected] for any urgent correspondence.

We thank you for your support and understanding and we will provide further updates throughout the day.

[Paralytic]

Our digital forensic partners are now well underway combing through the Brookson Group Infrastructure to ensure a safe removal of the cyber-attack is completed as quickly as possible.

Why do they need to remove something that was contained?

And their IP phone system on the same VLAN as their business critical systems? They need a new network admin (if they even have one).

[eek]

Why do they need to remove something that was contained?

And their IP phone system on the same VLAN as their business critical systems? They need a new network admin (if they even have one).

If someone has tried to get into your systems step 1 is doubling check that they haven't actually got into them.

[cmscotland]

I'm through Brookson, ironically this was my last month before going back to direct with the Ltd after securing a new role.
I did get paid on Friday but they've screwed up the tax, etc on it; I did get an odd letter last week from NEST advising that they had been referred to the Pensions Regulator for not making payments..... that said I'm pretty sure I opted out so not sure why they would be expecting money relating to me!

Portal, etc still down had no contact except the generic emails.

[Noiro]

but they've screwed up the tax, etc on it;

One of their updates on LinkedIn said they would be running payroll with a fixed percentage deduction as they don't have access to systems to calculate it correctly.

I got paid on Saturday after a call from them asking my bank details, and it's a fair bit lower than it should be.

I expect they'll include you in the next payroll run when they're back up and running to correct the amounts.