The ransomware attack disrupted the financial operations of many
large companies.
This has led some workers to worry that it might affect their last paycheck
before the holiday due to their payroll provider Kronos, the person handling
the ransom.
The accident affected entire cities and states trying to devise a plan to
take out their workers' paychecks.
And it can affect HR operations at organizations like the New York City
Metro Transit Authority, Honda, GameStop, and more.
An employee at One Whole Foods told NBC News that employees had to use "a
perforated sheet to keep track of our hours."
What is Kronos?
Kronos Private Cloud is a suite of HR software operated by a company
called Ultimate Kronos Group or UKG.
At first, Kronos didn't reveal how severe the problem actually was: The
company was later informed that its hosted versions of Workforce Central,
TeleStaff, and other services were not available, and said it had no
estimate of when they would be back online.
UKG recommended its clients "evaluate alternative plans for processing time
and attendance data for payroll processing", and UKG quickly revealed that
the problem was deeper than a service disruption: the company said it was
the victim of a
ransomware attack
that could take several weeks to fully restore system availability.
She also said that her "Backups are currently unavailable", which is the biggest disaster.
UKG's client list includes some huge names including Tesla, GameStop,
Honda, Sainsbury's, Puma, YMCA, MGM Resorts, the City of Denver and the New
York City Metro Transit Authority. Medical facilities were also reported to
have been affected by the EMS system in Honolulu and the Water Supply Board
that used Cronos, along with San Angelo and Shannon Medical Center in Texas
and more.
Some companies have promised to take out their paychecks, despite the
turmoil. According to NBC News, Whole Foods said it will be able to pay its
employees Friday, West Virginia said it has already processed paychecks for
December 17, and is coming up with a plan to pay workers on the 31st. The
city of Cleveland has reportedly said employees will continue to get paid,
though it said some of them may put their names, addresses and partial
Social Security numbers at risk.
However, anonymous sources told ZDNet that some companies will lose payroll
for this week. A post on the Sysadmin subreddit offers some ideas as to why,
with one person describing the incredible effort they go into calculating
employee hours and producing and mailing checks without UKG services.
