Most businesses don’t make it past their fifth birthday – studies show that roughly 50% of small businesses fail within the first five years. So when KNP Logistics Group (formerly Knights of Old) celebrated more than a century and a half of operations, it had mastered the art of survival. For 158 years, KNP adapted and endured, building a transport business that operated 500 trucks across the UK. But in June 2025, one easily guessed password brought down the company in a matter of days.
The Northamptonshire-based firm fell victim to the Akira ransomware group after hackers gained access by guessing an employee’s weak password. Attackers didn’t need a sophisticated phishing campaign or a zero-day exploit – all they needed was a password so simple that cybercriminals could guess it correctly.
When basic security fails, everything falls
No matter what advanced security mechanisms your organization has in place, everything falls if basic security measures fail. In the KNP attack, Akira targeted the company’s internet-facing systems, found an employee credential without multi-factor authentication, and guessed the password. Once inside, they deployed their ransomware payload across the company’s entire digital infrastructure.
But the hackers didn’t stop at encrypting critical business data. They also destroyed KNP’s backups and disaster recovery systems, ensuring that the company had no path to recovery without paying their ransom. The criminals demanded an estimated £5 million – money the transport company didn’t have.
KNP had industry-standard IT compliance and cyber-attack insurance, but none of these protections were enough to keep the organization going. Operations came to a standstill. Every truck was sidelined. All business data remained locked away. The cyber crisis team brought in by insurers described it as “the worst-case scenario” for any organization. Within weeks, KNP entered administration, and 700 employees lost their jobs.
The password problem persists
KNP’s story illustrates a weakness that continues to plague organizations across the globe. Research from Kaspersky analyzing 193 million compromised passwords found that 45% could be cracked by hackers within a minute. And when attackers can simply guess or quickly crack credentials, even the most established businesses become vulnerable. Individual security lapses can have organization-wide consequences that extend far beyond the person who chose “Password123” or left their birthday as their login credential.
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Beyond financial damage
KNP’s collapse demonstrates that ransomware attacks create consequences far beyond an immediate financial loss. Seven hundred families lost their primary income source. A company with nearly two centuries of history disappeared overnight. And Northamptonshire’s economy lost a…
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