Travelex Finally Restores Money Transfers

Foreign-currency seller Travelex UK is finally back online after nearly a month of disruption caused by a crippling ransomware attack.

The British website hosted a statement saying that Travelex’s UK International Money Transfer Service, as well as Travelex Wire, is now “fully operational.”

Travelex was taken down following a cyber-attack on Monday 30 December (New Years Eve), which impacted the exchange services of other foreign currency providers (such as Tesco Bank) that rely on Travelex.

Ransomware attack

On 8 January the firm finally confirmed that ransomware was to blame, with some media reports suggesting the firm was facing a ransom demand as high as nearly £5 million, and a deadline has been set for payment.

The firm was forced to conduct transaction on pen and paper, but now nearly a month later, services have been restored.

“** Travelex Wire is back! ** Travelex’s UK International Money Transfer Service, Travelex Wire, is now fully operational,” it said in a statement.

“We’re sorry but our online travel money service isn’t available right now,” it added. “This is as a result of a malware. Upon discovery, we immediately began an investigation and as a precautionary measure, took all our systems offline to prevent the spread of the malware further across our network.”

“We are pleased to announce that today we took another positive step forward,” it said. “Our first customer-facing systems in the UK are now live. We are therefore serving customers electronically in our UK stores and in some of our UK retail partner locations and expect to begin testing in some Travelex branches outside the UK this week.”

“Customers in UK airports will also be able to access our VAT refund services,” it added. “This is part of our phased approach to the global restoration of our systems.”

Customers can keep up-to-date on the matter here.

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