Following a malware invasion last month, the Catalyst Crofton mill has been able to resume paper for about a week now, but still can’t return to full capacity.
As Paper Excellence continues to clear malware from its IT systems, setting up production equipment for the type, dimensions, and quantity of paper orders is still being done manually.
Vice President Graham Kissack says the malware has been a sobering experience. He says “the takeaway is that the digital neighbourhood is getting rougher.”
Kissack says they had “very good capability and safeguards in place,” and they “were breached.”
He says the malware problem will take some time to deal with. The email system and some business software is operational, but its unclear when the company’s enterprise business system can be fully utilized to automate paper production.
Experience gained at doing things “old school” at the Crofton Mill was used to help restart limited paper production at the company’s Port Alberni mill, and will be used again to get things up and running at the Powell River mill until they completely fix the malware problem.
Malware in Paper Excellence IT system was noticed on the morning of February 20. Production of paper at company mills on the Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island was forced to halt, but pulp production was not affected.
