Capita cyberattack could cost the firm £20m

Capita has warned investors that it might face a financial setback of up to £20 million due to last month’s cyberattack that resulted in disturbances for the firm’s customers.

Capita informed the London Stock Exchange in a statement on Wednesday that despite successfully minimising the effects of the cyberattack, it anticipates expenses of £15 million to £20 million as a consequence.

These costs include expenses for hiring specialist professionals, recovery and remediation efforts, as well as investments to strengthen Capita’s cybersecurity infrastructure.

According to the group, their investigations into the cyberattack indicate that only a small part of their server estate, less than 0.1%, was affected and some data was accessed during the incident.

Capita has stated that it is cooperating closely with regulatory authorities, clients, suppliers and employees to notify those affected by the breach, and is taking all necessary measures to address the situation.

Moreover, Capita has asserted that it has implemented additional measures to safeguard the integrity, safety, and security of its IT infrastructure, in order to uphold its obligations to its clients.

As a supplier with contracts valued at £6.5 billion in the public sector, Capita is one of the largest contractors to the UK government.

The company provides services to several customers, including the British Army, Royal Navy, and fire and rescue operations for the Ministry of Defence, the London boroughs of Barnet, Barking and Dagenham, as well as South Oxfordshire.

It is also responsible for providing primary care support services to the NHS, electronic tagging for the prisons, and running Transport for London’s road-charging system.

Capita, which boasts a workforce of more than 50,000 employees in the UK, has a significant contract with HM Revenue and Customs to automate specific tax collection processes. Additionally, the company has a contract worth £456 million with the BBC to manage the collection of the licence fee.

Last month, Capita acknowledged that cybercriminals had gained access to its systems and remained undetected for nearly 10 days before the breach was finally discovered.

The company identified the breach after an IT failure resulted in staff being unable to access key systems, causing disruptions to services for local authorities and some businesses.

Initially, Capita had asserted that no customer data had been compromised in the cyberattack. However, a week later, the company issued an update stating that some information may have been stolen during the incident.

The attack on Capita caused significant concern for various government departments due to the supplier’s involvement in sensitive areas of government operations.

Consequently, the National Cyber Security Centre, the Cabinet Office and other relevant agencies were notified of the incident.

Financial regulators have also issued advisories to pension firms and major corporate clients of Capita to investigate whether any customer data may have been compromised.

Capita’s systems are utilised to manage pensions for roughly 450 organisations, such as Royal Mail and Axa, serving millions of policyholders.

In response to the Capita cyberattack, the Financial Conduct Authority has reached out to several businesses that employ the supplier for administrative services.

In addition to its other challenges, Capita is facing questions from the BBC regarding whether the data of millions of households was compromised in the cyberattack. This is because the company holds a big contract for the collection of television licence payments.

Capita announced on Wednesday that its current trading is consistent with expectations, and that the company’s financial year has seen a robust sales performance, with revenues increasing by 16% year-on-year to £449 million during the first four months.