Notice of Cyber Incident

CVS Group plc

08 April 2024

 

For immediate release                                                                                            8 April 2024

CVS Group plc

("CVS" or the "Company" and, together with its subsidiaries, the "Group")

Notice of Cyber Incident

CVS Group announces it has recently detected and intercepted a cyber incident which had involved unauthorised external access to a limited number of its IT systems.

Upon discovery of the incident, CVS took immediate steps to isolate the issue and, to prevent wider unauthorised access, took its IT systems temporarily offline, as part of the Group's response plan. Our responses to contain the threat of malicious activity have caused considerable operational disruption over the past week, but to date have been effective in preventing further external access to CVS systems.  Specialist third party consultants have been engaged to investigate the nature and extent of the incident and to support the response across the Group. CVS has also proactively informed the relevant authorities, including the Information Commissioner's Office, due to the risk of malicious access to personal information.

Whilst the prompt actions taken by the Group have limited the cyber incident, they have resulted in disruption to UK operations. Through the efforts of our colleagues, we have continued to provide our usual high levels of clinical care to clients and patients at the majority of our practices. IT services to our practices and business functions have now been securely restored across the majority of the estate; however, due to the increased levels of security and monitoring, some systems are not working as efficiently as previously and this is likely to result in an ongoing operational impact. Operations outside the UK remain operationally unaffected as do non-CVS hosted systems and the Group's e-commerce systems.

As a result of this incident, the Group is accelerating its plans to migrate its practice management system and related IT infrastructure to the Cloud to both provide enhanced security across our estate and to deliver operational efficiencies. Whilst we will continue to focus on providing high levels of clinical care to clients and patients, the security steps taken and the planned migration of our operational systems are likely to have an impact on operations for a number of weeks.

The forensic analysis is ongoing and we will continue to take all necessary steps to protect our business. The Group will provide a further update in due course.

We would like to thank all our colleagues for their support and professionalism in maintaining our veterinary services throughout this incident.

CVS Group plc                                                                                                    via Camarco

Richard Fairman, CEO

Ben Jacklin, Deputy CEO

Robin Alfonso, CFO

Peel Hunt LLP (Nominated Adviser & Broker)                                   [phone]

Christopher Golden / James Steel / Andrew Clark / Lalit Bose

  Berenberg (Joint Broker)                                                                      [phone]

Toby Flaux / Ben Wright / James Thompson / Milo Bonser

Camarco (Financial PR)                                                                                             

Ginny Pulbrook                                                                                       [phone]

Geoffrey Pelham-Lane                                                                              [phone]

   About CVS Group plc (www.cvsukltd.co.uk)

CVS Group is an AIM-listed provider of veterinary services with operations in the UK, Australia, the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland.  CVS is focused on providing high-quality clinical services to its clients and their animals, with outstanding and dedicated clinical teams and support colleagues at the core of its strategy.

The Group operates c.500 veterinary practices across its four territories, including specialist referral hospitals and dedicated out-of-hours sites. Alongside the core Veterinary Practices division, CVS operates Laboratories (providing diagnostic services to CVS and third-parties), Crematoria (providing pet cremation and clinical waste disposal for CVS and third-party practices) and the Group's online retail business ("Animed Direct").

The Group employs c.9,100 personnel, including c.2,400 veterinary surgeons and c.3,400 nurses.

 

END