London-listed veterinary services company CVS Group says it “detected and intercepted” a cyber attack on its IT systems.
The company told markets this morning that the incident involved “unauthorised external access” to some of its IT software.
It said after realising it was under attack, CVS “took immediate steps to isolate the issue and, to prevent wider unauthorised access”, taking its IT systems offline.
This comes after the competition watchdog said it is launching an investigation into the UK’s vet industry, amid concerns pet owners are not getting value for money.
CVS said it plans to “our responses to contain the threat of malicious activity have caused considerable operational disruption over the past week, but to date have been effective in preventing further external access to CVS systems.”
It has brought in a third party to help investigate its nature and extent, and it said it informed authorities including the Information Commissioner’s Office.
CVS said while its actions were effective it had resulted in “disruption” to its UK activities, but it has “continued to provide” care to clients and patients.
“IT services to our practices and business functions have now been securely restored across the majority of the estate; however, due to the increased levels of security and monitoring, some systems are not working as efficiently as previously and this is likely to result in an ongoing operational impact.”
Non-UK operations are unaffected.
It added that the incident is accelerating its move to a cloud-based storage system, which “are likely to have an impact on operations for a number of weeks.”
This comes after a major upsurge in cyber attacks, including from China and Russia.
Last month the minister for artificial intelligence (AI) urged British businesses to shore up their cyber attack defences as government data revealed that three quarters of medium and large sized businesses were hit by a cyber incident in the past year.
In March, the UK government issued sanctions and a summons over alleged Chinese cyber attacks.
CVS’s share price is down more than -49 per cent in the last year.