A TINY Scots brewery has been blackmailed by cyber hackers as part of a sophisticated Ransomware attack.

Bosses at The Arran Brewery were targeted by the online crooks before bringing in experts to beef up their security.

2 The brewery was targeted

And they say that the attack caused severe disruption to the business and the loss of three months data from one sever.

Managing Director Gerald Michaluk explained that he felt the company was "targeted" by the "devious" scheme.

He said that hackers demanded cash from the brewery in the attack.

2 Gerald explained the circumstances around the attack

He said: “The virus was introduced in an email but how this happened is very devious and it is clear we were targeted. We advertise job vacancies on our website, one such job vacancy was for a credit control and finance assistant post, now filled.

"Out of the blue we started getting applicants for the post from all over the country and the world.

"I assumed one of my colleagues had advertised the post. However, this was not the case; the attackers had taken our website vacancy and posted it on some international jobs site.

"We were getting three of four emails a day all with attached CVs in amongst there genuine job seekers was the virus and when the CV was opened it took effect, being so new a virus our virus protection software did not pick up the attack.

"The software then started to encrypt our system starting with our backups and working I was through the files on our computers and then central server.

"We were then faced with a ransom demand. Pay up for a key to unencrypted the files or do without the data.

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"We chose to bring in an expert who having identified the problem was able to eliminate the virus and restore part of our system, and is confident in due course when the key is cracked will be able to restore the lost data.

"I hope if anyone finds themselves in a similar position they can recognise the MO of these bandits and not have the same issues we have had”.

Bosses at the brewery said they were back up and running - but lost a lot of data.

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