Most businesses aren’t past their fifth birthday – research shows that around 50% of small businesses failed within the first five years. Therefore, when the KNP Logistics Group (formerly Night of Old) celebrated its operations for over a century and a half, it was mastering the art of survival. For 158 years, the KNP has adapted, endured, and built a transport business that operates 500 trucks across the UK. However, in June 2025, one person easily guessed password knocked down the company in a few days.
The Northamptonshire-based company has fallen victim to the Akira Ransomware group after hackers gained access by guessing weak passwords for employees. Attackers didn’t need sophisticated phishing campaigns or zero-day exploits – all they needed was a password that was simple enough for cybercriminals to guess it correctly.
If basic security fails everything goes down
No matter what advanced security mechanisms an organization implements, if basic security measures fail, everything goes down. In the KNP attack, Akira targeted the company’s internet-facing system, finding employee credentials and guessing passwords without multi-factor authentication. Once inside, they deployed ransomware payloads throughout the company’s digital infrastructure.
But hackers didn’t stop at encrypting important business data. They also destroyed the KNP backup and disaster recovery system, ensuring that the company did not secure a path to recovery without paying the ransom. The criminals demanded an estimated £5 million – money that the transport company didn’t have.
KNP had industry standard IT compliance and cyberattack insurance, but none of these protections were sufficient to maintain the organization. The operation has stopped. All the tracks were on the sidelines. All business data remained locked. The cybercrisis team brought about by insurance companies described it as “the worst case scenario” for any organization. Within a few weeks, the KNP entered management, with 700 employees losing their jobs.
Password issues persist
The KNP story illustrates the weaknesses that continue to plague organizations around the world. Kaspersky’s research analyzed 193 million compromised passwords and found that hackers could be broken by 45% within a minute. And even the most established businesses become vulnerable if attackers simply recognize them or can crack their credentials immediately. Individual security revocations can result in organization-wide outcomes that go far beyond those who chose Password123 or who left their birthday as a login.
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Beyond economic damage
The collapse of KNP shows that ransomware attacks produce results well beyond immediate economic losses. 700 families lost their major source of income. The company, which has a history of nearly two centuries, disappeared after one night. And the Northamptonshire economy has lost key employers and service providers.
For businesses that survive ransomware attacks, reputational damage often exacerbates the initial blow. Organizations face continued scrutiny from customers, partners and regulators questioning security practices. Stakeholders seek accountability for data breaches and operational failures, leading to legal liability.
UK’s growing ransomware crisis
According to a government survey, KNP is participating in an estimated 19,000 British companies that suffered from ransomware attacks last year. Famous victims include major retailers such as M&S, Co-op and Harrods, indicating that the organization is too big or not established to be targeted.
It’s become easier. Crime gangs have lowered the barrier to entry by providing platforms as a wretchumware and social engineering tactics that do not require sophisticated technical skills. Attackers are currently calling it HELPDESK to leverage human psychology rather than software vulnerabilities and trick the path to corporate systems.
Industry research shows that the typical UK ransom demand reaches around £4 million, with about a third of companies choosing to pay rather than risking losses across the business. However, payments do not guarantee data recovery and do not prevent future attacks. It simply funds crime operations targeting other organizations.
Build a resilient defense
The KNP incident emphasizes that security controls are the organization’s most important defense against ransomware. If a single weak qualification can destroy business operations for decades (or centuries), then we cannot afford to treat password security as an afterthought. To build a resilient defense, you need to:
Implement strong password policies: The first defense is a strong password policy backed by compromised password detection. By blocking weak and commonly compromised passwords while implementing long, complicated passphrases, you can significantly reduce the risk of successful entitlement attacks.
For maximum level of protection, consider implementing automated solutions such as Specops password policies. It continuously scans active directory credentials against billions of known compromised passwords, helping organizations to prevent easily guessable credentials like defeating KNP while enforcing strong password policies.
Enable multifactor authentication: Even if your password is compromised, additional authentication factors can prevent unauthorized access to critical systems. The lack of KNP’s MFA in Internet-facing systems allowed the attacker to pass through an open door, guessing the initial credentials.
For greater security, add a second layer of protection to your system using a multifactor authentication solution, such as Specops Secure Access. Secure Access helps you better protect your organization from password attacks, as well as meet your compliance and cybersecurity insurance requirements.
Implement Zero Trust Architecture and minimal privileged access control: Password and authentication protection should be exceeded to limit what attackers can do if they enter the network. Zero Trust Architecture compromises and validates all access requests regardless of user location or previous authentication status. Least Privileged Access Control Works in conjunction with this approach to restrict lateral movement within the network and prevents a single violation account from unlocking all organizational resources.
Perform regular backup tests and recovery. Organizations should regularly test the restore procedure as their backup systems remain isolated from the primary network. When ransomware collides, functional backups often decide whether or not a company is surviving.
If a 158-year-old destruction of a company with one guessed password gives a terrible feeling to the stomach hole, cybersecurity failures have real consequences. Investing in security management today costs much less than rebuilding your business from scratch – if rebuilding is an option.
Ready to improve your password security? For more information about Specops password policies and Specops, ensure access to protect your organization from qualification-based attacks. Book today’s live demo.
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