Wauchope Vets have had their computer system hacked.
Earlier this month, hackers got into their server and encrypted their data. Vet Michael Ferguson said that thankfully it didn’t affect their clients, or their records.
“It happened on Friday July 16. The only problem was not having computers to work with on Saturday. It was back to good old hand-written records.
“It seems that we have been victims of a brute force attack, where they bombarded our IP address, and eventually figured out the username and the password (which had three numbers, capital and lower case letters, but obviously not random enough) to gain access and cause havoc.”
Luckily, Michael has a good relationship with his local IT guy, Tim Baker from Baker IT, who had to do a full server rebuild, using their last back-up on to an external hard drive, from earlier that Friday night.
It still took all Saturday and most of Sunday to get their software up and running, which was costly, frustrating and stressful.
”May our experience serve as a warning to all,” said Michael.
Letitia Fitzpatrick
Worked as a journalist and assistant producer for BBC news and current affairs in the UK, Ulster Television, Q Radio and the Irish News in Northern Ireland. Moved to Australia and joined Fairfax Media in 2016. Won a Rotary Paul Harris Fellowship award in 2018 for reporting the Pappinbarra bushfires and the subsequent Rotary appeal which raised $30,000.
Worked as a journalist and assistant producer for BBC news and current affairs in the UK, Ulster Television, Q Radio and the Irish News in Northern Ireland. Moved to Australia and joined Fairfax Media in 2016. Won a Rotary Paul Harris Fellowship award in 2018 for reporting the Pappinbarra bushfires and the subsequent Rotary appeal which raised $30,000.
