The Downfall of a British Logistics Legacy
For over 160 years, Knights of Old ran goods up and down Britain’s roads. So when the company—one of the country's best-known logistics sector players—collapsed in 2023, it sent shockwaves across the entire industry. But it wasn’t slow business, Brexit, or pandemic aftershocks that killed Knights of Old. The culprit: a modern threat, invisible but ruthless—a ransomware attack carried out by the infamous Akira group.
This wasn’t just another company on the casualty list. Founded in 1865 in Kettering, Knights of Old survived two world wars, oil crises, and multiple recessions. But when hackers struck in June 2023, they managed to cripple its entire IT backbone. The ransom note that landed inside the company's computer systems wasn’t just a demand for money—it was the first sign that the company’s core financial records had been corrupted or wiped out.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. With 730 employees relying on their next paycheck, and lenders waiting for updated financials, everything snapped to a halt. Board director Paul Abbott described the scenario as surreal. The company had invested heavily in digital defenses, layering protocol on protocol. 'We thought we were in a very good place in terms of security,' Abbott admitted. But the attackers bypassed every safeguard the company had, going straight for the financial reporting systems that underpin a haulage business’s survival.
With their digital lifeline severed, employees were forced to fall back on pen, paper, and spreadsheets. Trucks were still rolling, but nobody could tell exactly where the money was coming from, or going to. And as deadlines from lenders loomed, the manual patchwork increasingly felt like bailing out a sinking ship with a teacup. Missing those key deadlines proved fatal and, soon after, Knights of Old was formally pushed into administration. Centuries of operational experience, gone with a few mouse clicks.
The Industry’s Digital Blind Spot
The ripples from the Knights of Old breach spread quickly. The logistics sector, once considered hard-nosed and resilient, suddenly looked frighteningly fragile. Old-school resilience is no match for modern cyber warfare. It’s not just customer data that’s at stake—whole supply chains depend on interconnected, real-time systems. A single encrypted file can stop hundreds of trucks in their tracks.
Abbott didn’t mince words about the wider lesson. According to him, the reputational damage is just as devastating as the actual outage. Customers lose confidence. Investors panic. For businesses considering cybersecurity a tick-box exercise, Abbott’s warning rings clear: 'There are hundreds of businesses being compromised.' That’s not fear-mongering—it’s what happened to one of the oldest names in British logistics.
Worse still, Knights of Old wasn’t alone. Around the same time, hackers targeted major retailers too. Both Marks & Spencer and the Co-op had to battle outages after separate ransomware gangs (including DragonForce) locked up their systems. For these businesses, every hour offline costs serious money and erodes consumer trust.
Cyber crooks aren’t picky—they’re after the weakest links, the companies whose defenses lag behind their tech needs. In logistics, where everything hinges on digital management, even smaller breaches can have outsized impacts. The fall of Knights of Old serves as a stark reminder: in this new era, cybersecurity isn’t just about protecting data. It’s about keeping businesses alive.
May, 20 2025