British Insurance Awards 2019: The Major Loss Award - Sedgwick International UK, HSB Engineering Insurance, AKW Group – Ransomware Attack

Winner: Sedgwick International UK, HSB Engineering Insurance, AKW Group – Ransomware Attack

If your company experienced a cyber attack, would you feel forced to pay the ransom?

Thanks to the rapid response of Sedgwick International UK, winner of the Major Loss award, one global logistics company didn’t have to.

At the end of last year, AKWG, found itself unable to access network systems, and soon discovered a hidden ransom note from the criminal group Ryuk demanding funds for the release of a decryption key to unlock the data on their systems. Revenue, relationships and reputation were suddenly at stake.

However, Sedgwick’s cyber team managed to defeat the fraudster with a bespoke solution managed with utmost adeptness and no ransom was ever paid.

Deploying forensic IT partners to the site, Sedgwick oversaw the network rebuild and systems were rebuilt in time to fulfil Christmas orders.

Complex warehouse and logistics systems were up and running within a week, and 80% of the remaining systems 14 days later.

One judge observed: “This demonstrates how to deal with a ransomware attack without having to pay the criminals.”

AKWG’s significant business exposure was masterfully mitigated by Sedgwick.

We’re absolutely delighted to have won the major loss award along with AKW Group and HSB Engineering Insurance. This is the fourth consecutive year that Sedgwick has won this category with entries for managing storm damage to Network Rail infrastructure, flooding of McVitie’s factory, prison riot damage and now a significant cyber-attack.

Mark Hawksworth, global technology specialist practice group leader Sedgwick