Terry Town’s systems are back online after suffering a cyberattack causing a multi-day outage. The incident left the supplier unable to perform key functions required to process or ship orders from Monday through Wednesday.

• Terry Town (PPAI 230911, Professional Gold) is PPAI 100’s No. 40 ranked supplier.
• While staff emails were not down, the staff temporarily lost access as passwords were changed as security measures.
  

“We have spent the past two weeks working to restore full operations,” says Sy Ereren president of Terry Town. “Currently, we are safely back and fully operational, with all communication lines open.”

• The computer network disruption took place on Monday, July 15 with the hack possibly occurring the weekend prior.  
• As of July 18, Terry Town was safely able to communicate via phone and email, but the supplier was still not what it considered to be fully operational.
  

The supplier says that there is no evidence data breach occurred as a result of the hack.

What Happened?

On July 15 Terry Town experienced a cyber-attack that impacted its main server, disrupting order processing, inventory management and phone and email communications.

In response to the incident, the company has:

• Conducted comprehensive system scans
• Implemented enhanced security measures to protect against future threats.
  

An investigation into the incident is ongoing. With no current evidence of a data breach, partners of Terry Town should not be concerned with the status of any private information.

“Our primary challenge now is addressing the backlog of communications and processing requests,” says Ereren.

A Growing Trend Of Cyber Scams

The entire promo industry needs to be aware of the constant threat of cyber scammers, ransomware possibilities and general hackers. Safe practices and employee education are more than a wise precaution against an unlikely threat. Any given member of PPAI should expect to be targeted in multiple attempts of these types of crimes.

In fact, PPAI itself was targeted recently in a defrauding scam, as recently detailed by PPAI Media.

Unfortunately, this is a reality that promo firms will need to accept. In the near future, the number of scammers will only increase, and their tactics will become more sophisticated.

• Many large enterprise clients are demanding that distributors increase their data protection efforts despite the often-high cost to do so.
• In June, PPAI Media reported on a Florida distributorship’s bank account being hacked, leaving the owners high and dry when their bank would not assist.

Written by: Jonny Auping

Published with Permission from PPAI