Accounting Software Firm Wolters Kluwer Hit By Ransomware

May 8, 2019 | Marc Enzor | Blog, Cybersecurity

Wolters Kluwer, makers of the popular Accounting & Tax software CCH Axcess, was recently hit with the ransomware virus called Mega Cortex. Their services have been down since Monday morning, and they also missed their expected uptime on Tuesday. Currently, they expect to have services restored by 3:30pm CST on Wednesday 5/8. Given the nature of the ransomware virus strike, it is plausible they could have a longer downtime. This information was confirmed through a reddit post about the CCH Axcess Outage. Reddit user BRaVo_cHoKe stated, “I’m a system engineer with WK. The issue is quite large and is not just affecting CCH Axcess, but rather all customer facing products across the health, Tax & Accounting, Governance, Risk & Compliance, and Legal & Regulatory. My office was not affected directly but was told to turn off our backup software and turn off all domain controllers effectively ending our work day.”.

After being pushed for more info, they wrote “Can confirm it’s Mega Cortex” and “Yeah. No word as of yet when they’ll go online. And they just let every one in the office head home for the day (Excluding IT of course).”

Other employees of Wolters Kluwer have stated on reddit that IT hasn’t left the office since Monday, and have been sleeping at the office.

Ransomware strikes can be deadly and happen incredibly fast. In this day and age, a business MUST have a solid IT company behind them to maintain their servers and stay ahead of ransomware. In the event a ransomware virus does strike, backups and disaster recovery planning must be in place to maintain your business. A good IT company can also help navigate through the disaster to limit downtime to as little as possible. Give Geeks 2 You a call today to discuss how we can help prevent disasters from happening, and keep your business working.