FCSA-accredited umbrella company Giant Pay says that it has made all outstanding payments after being hit by a cyber-attack on September 22. After detecting “suspicious activity” on its network, the company took the measure to proactively take its systems offline.
This lead to many contractors working with the firm reporting that they had not been paid and could not contact Giant Pay or log into their online portals.
At the time, the company said: “Upon detection of suspicious activity on our network on 22nd September 2021, we immediately assembled a response team including IT data experts and specialist lawyers, and we are currently working with the highest priority to resolve this issue.”
“As part of the investigation and as a measure of caution, we have proactively taken our systems offline and suspended all services temporarily.”
Confirming that it had been the “victim of a sophisticated cyber-attack”, Giant Pay said in a statement on its website on October 1st that it had been able to process and pay all of its outstanding payrolls, making more than 18,000 payments to workers.
In full, the statement read: “Since Friday 24th September we’ve made over 18,000 payments to workers and processed and paid all outstanding payrolls. All payrolls and payments are now being processed in line with your usual payroll schedule.”
“If you have any queries regarding payments or the payment advances we have made to you, please contact our support team via your portal, live chat or phone.”
“We would like to take this opportunity to again apologise for the inconvenience caused and thank all of you who have sent us messages of support during what has been a very challenging time for our contractor workforce.”
The cyber-attack targeting Giant Pay came shortly after another umbrella company, Unified Payroll, experienced “severe issues” with its payroll system, resulting in a security issue with its bank account that left it unable to make payments to some workers.
Author: Steven English
08.10.2021
