Kwik-Fit hit by MOT fail, that’s Malware On Target

January 31, 2019 TH Author

Car servicing chain Kwik-Fit has suffered a malware attack that has caused delays in customers’ car repairs.

The company initially would only confess to El Reg that it had been infected by an unspecified “virus” in its “IT network” over the weekend, and the BBC later reported “malware” was to blame.

Kwik-Fit told us: “We first experienced some issues with a virus in our IT network during the weekend. This affected a number of our systems but in the interest of ongoing security we can’t confirm the source of the problem.

“We can reassure customers that we do not store any of their financial information and currently have no reason to believe that any customer data was compromised.”

Earlier this week, it was fending off angry tweets about missed appointments from customers who were then unable to get through to a call centre that was clearly struggling under the deluge.

@Kwik_Fit you cancelled my tyre fitting appointment on Saturday, promised that you would arrive to fit my tyres this morning (Monday)…… no show and no contact.

“You can’t get better than a Kwik-Fit Fitter, we’re the boys to trust” ……

— Jase O’T (@Jase_OT) January 28, 2019

From the scant facts publicly available, it appears that whatever KO’d Kwik-Fit’s systems without compromising sensitive data may have been ransomware. We put this to Kwik-Fit but the company did not respond.

A customer who asked the firm via Twitter when its systems would be back online was told it didn’t know.

Hi Andy, currently our systems are down so you won’t receive the reset password link yet. We would recommend waiting to reset this for when our servers are back up and running. We apologise for any inconvenience. – JP

— Kwik Fit CS (@KwikFitCS) January 31, 2019

If you can shed any light on the situation, you can get in touch with the author here. ®