NZ and Australian sites appear to have been unaffected by yesterday’s ransomware attack that swept much of the world, putting global advertising giant WPP offline across Europe and North America.
It is understood all WPP staff globally have been instructed not to log onto the corporate network until further notice.
NZ WPP companies include Ogilvy, Assignment, Colmar Brunton, Designworks, Hill & Knowlton, Mediacom and Y&R.
A quick check-around by M+AD revealed no problems with their domestic NZ sites. We also checked WPP Indonesia and Ogilvy Malaysia – no problems there, either.
“New Zealand has independent, cloud-based system.”
The company is part way through a digital transformation project which included a seven year, US$1.25 billion service contract with IBM to provide a hybrid cloud computing platform for the WPP’s operations.
In WPP’s 2016 annual report, the company identified cyber and data security as a risk but stated “the IT Transformation project will enhance the group’s data security”.
It appears the unaffected WPP websites in this part of the world were not compromised as they were running on an independent, cloud-based system rather than the company’s centralised on-premise systems which appear to run most of the organisation’s IT infrastructure.
WPP’s Singapore spokesperson told an Australia Mumbrella reporter: “IT systems in several WPP companies have been affected by a suspected cyber attack. We are assessing the situation, taking appropriate measures and will update as soon as possible.”
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