Pet owners hit by phone outage after cyber attack on vet

ONE of the UK’S biggest vet companies has warned over ongoing disruption from a cyber attack, after the incident forced it to take IT systems offline.

CVS Group, which owns around 500 vet practices in the UK, Australia, the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland, expected an “ongoing operational impact” from the preventative measures it took. Systems were understood to be running slower than normal yesterday morning at vet practices across the UK as a result of telephone lines going down briefly as CVS took IT systems offline.

It said the attack involved unauthorised external access to some systems.

The decision to isolate the issue resulted in “considerable operational disruption”, but it had successfully prevented the systems being further breached, CVS said. It had informed the Information Commissioner’s Office, the data regulator, “due to the risk of malicious access to personal information”.

Government data last month suggested three quarters of UK medium and large businesses were struck by cyber incidents last year.

CVS did not say what data might have been exposed, though it is not believed to be customer information.

The cyber attack follows a torrid month for CVS, which has suffered a 40pc slump in its share price since late February.

The rout has come as the competition watchdog investigates whether UK pet owners are paying too much for vets.

The Competition and Markets Authority has launched a full review of veterinary services after warning that pet owners are struggling to shop around.