Last Tuesday 6 March, Kelburn Vic Books computers were attacked, resulting in their servers being encrypted. Juliet Blyth, General Manager of Vic Books, arrived at work on 8:00am Tuesday morning to find a message from the hackers on her computer screen, demanding a ransom in Bitcoin.
Vic Book’s IT company took down the Vic Books server as a precautionary measure. The computer systems were down until 4:30pm on Tuesday.
Customers were unable to purchase books all day, on what is usually Vic Books’ “second busiest day of the year”.
IT Engine has informed Vic Books that the virus was created by a “group of international people with sophisticated systems”.
Blyth denies the possibility that the hackers timed the break with the start of the trimester, saying that the timing was coincidental. “They try it on with a lot of systems… it’s just our bad luck”.
Systems being down on Tuesday “inconvenienced a whole lot of people,” however Blyth says that it has not majorly impacted sales. “We lost a little… but students still need their textbooks”.
Blyth is confident that no-one’s private information has been compromised.
Vic Books’ computer security systems are currently under internal review.