US reseller CompuCom faces more than $20m in costs after malware attack

The incident forced the US MSP to suspend services to customers

CompuCom is expecting losses of more than $20m as a result of the malware incident that took place at the start of the month.

The MSP said on 3 March that "certain CompuCom information technology systems" had been affected by the "malware incident" and that this - in turn - is affecting some of the services it provides to "certain customers".

In an update, the reseller's parent company, Office Depot, estimated the loss of revenue to be between $5m and $8m due to the attack. The main reason for the loss comes down to CompuCom temporarily suspending "certain services to certain customers".

Meanwhile, CompuCom claims that it will incurr $20m in expenses related to efforts to restore service delivery to impacted customers and to address "other matters" related to the cyber incident.. The reseller says around $10m of the $20m costs will be incurred during its first quarter of 2021.

Cyber insurance may cover a portion of these costs, Office Depot claims.

CompuCom claims that it was able to "substantially" restore its ability to deliver certain services affected by the cyber attack by 17 March. It hopes to have delivery restored to all of its cusomters by the end of March.

The US firm first disclosed the cyberattack on 3 March.

"Certain CompuCom services were not directly impacted by the malware and CompuCom continued to deliver certain services to those customers throughout March," Office Depot said.

"As a part of the restoration efforts, CompuCom has taken actions to efficiently and securely restore service delivery to its customers while hardening its systems with enhanced security measures and advanced anti-malware agents."

Office Depot stressed it is currently in a "quiet period" prior to its release of earnings results for Q1 2021. Its first quarter earnings call is scheduled to occur on 5 May.