How pen and paper comes to the rescue in an IT crisis

One company that knows the value of paper is Norsk Hydro, a Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy firm.

In 2019, hackers targeted Hydro with ransomware that locked staff out of more than 20,000 computers. Bosses at Hydro decided they would not pay a ransom fee to restore access, meaning that 35,000 staff working across 40 countries had to find other ways of doing their jobs, temporarily.

They dug old binders out of basements with instructions on how to produce particular aluminium products, for instance, recalls Halvor Molland, a spokesman for Hydro. At some locations, by sheer chance, staff had printed out order requests just before the cyber-attack hit.

“Their creativity… was tremendous,” says Mr Molland. While computers with customer information and company data were locked out, factory equipment was mercifully unaffected by the ransomware. At some facilities, staff bought computers and printers from local retailers so they could print off information for factory workers. And vintage office kit came in handy. “We actually had to dust off some old telefaxes,” remembers Mr Molland.

Although production fell by up to 50% at certain plants, these workarounds kept the business going. “You need to do what you need to do,” as Mr Molland puts it. Reflecting, he suggests that companies might want to keep printed copies of key information such as internal telephone numbers or checklists so that some work can continue even in the event of a massive cyber-attack.