简体中文
Police are investigating hackers holding Travelex's computers for ransom, forcing the company's staff to resort to using pen and paper to record transactions.
The firm
initially said it had discovered the attack
on New Year's Day and immediately took its systems down, with its early investigations suggesting that no personal or customer data has been compromised.
Exchange services are having to be handled manually in branches during the outage, the firm added.
Image:Ransomware has previously impacted the NHS in the UK
It is not yet clear whether customer details or finances have been stolen during the course of the attack.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said its cyber crime team was making enquiries "with regards to a reported ransomware attack".
Although the specifics of the attack on Travelex are currently unknown, one of the most commons methods hackers use to make money out of their access to victim's computer networks is by installing ransomware on the devices.
This malicious software will encrypt the files on the computer - making them inaccessible unless the victim pays the hackers in order to receive the key which would decrypt their files.
A ransomware attack known as WannaCry which severely impacted the NHS in 2017 was subsequently blamed on the North Korean regime attempting to raise funds amid sanctions over its nuclear programme.
When the attack on Travelex was first announced, chief executive Tony D'Souza said: "We regret having to suspend some of our services in order to contain the virus and protect data.
"We apologise to all our customers for any inconvenience caused as a result. We are doing all we can to restore our full services as soon as possible."
Third parties which work with Travelex to provide foreign currency purchases including Sainsbury's Bank and Virgin Money are also currently unavailable.
The company's website currently reads: "Our online, foreign currency purchasing service is temporarily unavailable due to planned maintenance. The system will be back online shortly."
Image:Travelex also has an app for its customers to use
Travelex has a presence in more than 70 countries and has more than 1,200 branches and 1,000 ATMs worldwide, with exchange machines a common sight at airports, and customers can also use a smartphone app.
The London-based firm processes more than 5,000 currency transactions every hour.
The issue comes almost two years after the company was embroiled in another IT crisis, when it mistakenly leaked customer data from thousands of Tesco Bank accounts.
The group, which provided foreign currency on behalf of Tesco Bank, shared the database by mistake in March 2018, exposing the details of 17,000 people.
Those included full names, emails, phone numbers, IP addresses and the final digits of bank cards.
