Mon 13 Dec 2021 // 15:07 UTC. Kronos outage update We are reaching out with an update regarding the cybersecurity incident that has disrupted the Kronos Private Cloud. The other two-thirds are a combination of either nonexempt, hourly workers or nonexempt, hourly and variable pay employees who work different shifts at different times. Kronos announced Sunday that its reaching out to clients this week, at which point, the company will have a better idea of when its systems will be back up and running. "The first what I would call 'clean' payroll would have been the Feb. 3 payroll," said Sergio Melgar, executive vice president and chief financial officer of the health system. "The reality is we're going to see more of these attacks," said Trevor White, a research manager specializing in HCM technologies with Nucleus Research in Boston. Mellen offered up similar guidance, adding that security teams and HR operations should prioritize a strategy for communicating with employees around such incidents. Security experts say public clouds often are more hardened because they're regular targets of hackers and they tend to attract the best security professionals in the field. To: Kronos Users. **What happened? "We had like 100 time clocks. UKG has been "generous at times" in financial negotiations following the incident, Pemberton noted, but he said he would like to see reimbursement beyond two months of service credit from the company. Attorneys say given that customer data was compromised and some companies weren't able to pay employees accurately during the outage, both UKG and its clients could be subject to lawsuits. HR technology analysts say vendors and their clients should brace themselves for similar attacks as more hackers train their sights on sensitive employee data rather than customer data. OhioHealth is one of about 27,000 employers that rely on the Ultimate Kronos Group for its human resources systems. While ransomware caused massive issues with the Kronos Public Cloud, delaying payroll for customers in mid-December, UKG later . 'Hopefully it would be up in short order', Melgar's team first became aware of the attack on. According to the timekeeping and payroll . The next phase will be restoring service completely. We are reaching out with an update regarding the cybersecurity incident that has disrupted the Kronos Private Cloud. ", UMass knew these manual procedures were designed as short-term fixes, not long-term solutions, Melgar said. "In general, security on public clouds is tested and updated more regularly and is more robust than private clouds, which often have more outdated technology. In light of the global pandemic, we had specialist teams dedicated to healthcare, first responders, and similar customers. December 13, 2021. **When can we expect this to be resolved? Members may download one copy of our sample forms and templates for your personal use within your organization. Nonetheless, MHI Shared Services also will retain Kronos moving forward, Pemberton said, and the organization plans to migrate from the Private Cloud product to UKG's Dimensions product, which Pemberton described as a more secure alternative in part because it is hosted on Google's cloud platform, rather than Kronos'. Kronos Ransomware Update 2022 - Kronos has been dealing with ransomware for a month. The statement said UKG is now focused on the "restoration of supplemental features and nonproduction environments" and is offering video-based recovery guides to help customers reconcile their data. Nabil Hannan, managing director for NetSPI, an enterprise security testing and vulnerability management firm in Minneapolis, said too many organizations still focus on protecting customer data at the expense of securing employee data. In February, one New York City transit employee. Build specialized knowledge and expand your influence by earning a SHRM Specialty Credential. You could have a bonus for shifts. We are now focused on the restoration of supplemental features and non-production environments and are extraordinarily grateful for the patience and partnership our customers have shown, the statement reads. Another frustrated worker said they work at UF Health part-time and logged more than double the normal hours last month, but the employee has not been paid for the extra hours. Employees should be encouraged to review their paychecks and escalate any discrepancies to you for resolution. All of the employees with whom we spoke said they are already overwhelmed working during the pandemic at the hospital and feel like no one is answering their questions and concerns or providing any sense of urgency to get them the money that they earned. UKG and companies using its services may be facing legal action. A manual check for additional hours worked can be cut upon team member and manager request. Click here to take a moment and familiarize yourself with our Community Guidelines. Essentially, while UMass could still run the payroll by itself, that would involve some degree of guesswork. ", In an email, a UKG spokesperson provided a statement on the company's response: "Core functionality for customers impacted by this incident was restored by January 22. Administrative Management Systems (AMS), Kronos. 2021, UKG, the parent company of workforce management platform Kronos, using its Kronos Private Cloud product of a "ransomware incident." After making some calls Sunday afternoon, he confirmed that Kronos was the source of the outage, not UMass. Fixing discrepancies: 'It can become quite a mess', How 'joint leadership,' 'joint accountability' helped, Webinar We have had an open line of communication with Kronos throughout this disruption and have been assured that healthcare clients, like OhioHealth, are at the top of the priority list. The company said the first phase of its recovery process was completed January 22, restoring access to the core functionality of Private Cloud. It was not un, hat UMass resumed using Kronos as the timekeeping source for its payroll, and even then, the organization noted discrepancies. "Individuals could form a class action suit to claim they were underpaid as a result of the service outage or that their personal data was leaked as a result of their employer not conducting proper due diligence on the security practices of the vendor it contracted with," he said. Webinar "This was unparalleled, unmatched," said Richard Pemberton, senior HRIS analyst at MHI Shared Services Americas and former Kronos employee. ET, Presented by studioID and Express Employment Professionals, How to manage employee communication in the hybrid era, Inside the rapidly changing world of benefits. Dear Kronos users, As you may be aware, on December 13 we were notified about an issue with the Kronos application. Contracts can be structured to share responsibility with the client. White said there can be inherent security risks in using private versus public cloud services. 12:57 PM. But to get an accurate payroll, I needed Kronos to be active. But when another email on Sunday confirmed that things were still down, "that was not a good sign," Melgar said. You could have all the different variables that affect the pay that somebody gets. The SHARE Union / 50 Lake Avenue, Worcester, MA . Patrick Thibodeau covers HCM and ERP technologies for TechTarget. Photo illustration by Getty Images/iStockphoto/HR Dive; photograph by EEOC Gets Approval For Deals In Race via Getty Images, SocialTalent Launches The SocialTalent Academy: A Professional Certification Program for Recru, The Omnia Group Releases 2023 Annual Talent Trends Report, Talent Attraction and Retention for 2023: Finance and HR leaders should look to on-demand pay,, Talkspace Launches First-of-its-Kind Portal Dedicated to Employee Mental Health Resources, By signing up to receive our newsletter, you agree to our. The reconciliation will include a review of actual hours worked, overtime and any shift differential pay, officials said. Updated: 6:36 PM EST December 23, 2021 GREENSBORO, N.C. Cone Health said they are one of the companies impacted by the Kronos ransomware attack that began earlier this month. "Even though they were exempt, [some] actually were paid short on their check because they happened to have had only a partial week the weeks that we ended up [cloning]. The Kronos outage is the second cyberattack that impacted GW last month. Customers have not been without their frustrations, however. That's because of the complexity of the typical healthcare payroll; it's "maybe the most complicated payroll that exists," he continued. Their paycheck is still wrong, they told the I-TEAM. **How can we capture employee time and attendance during this time? else if(currentUrl.indexOf("/about-shrm/pages/shrm-mena.aspx") > -1) { UKG Inc. is continuing to investigate and manage outages related to a ransomware attack that forced it to shut down some of its Kronos cloud-based services that log and store employee working. Published: 16 Feb 2022. As Kronos continues to work toward system restoration, Baptist Health payroll and IT teams have worked together to enable alternate systems for tracking time and processing payroll as scheduled. Kronos was on the phone with UMass' IT department that same day. And for those customers who don't want to move or upgrade right away, what will UKG do to assure them they have fixed whatever gaps may have existed in their security layer?". Kronos and its parent company UKG said it spotted unusual activity on December 11, 2021. He said he was part of a group that received an email indicating Kronos was down. "Yes, Penn Highlands Healthcare still uses the Kronos timekeeping system," Heather B. Schneider, chief financial officer, said in an email. Jennifer, who anchors The Morning Shows and is part of the I-TEAM, loves working in her hometown of Jacksonville. PDF 01.10.2022 Ransomware locked up time records for thousands of companies across the country last month, and those records remain unavailable. January 14, 2022 - HR management solutions . The incident affected customers using UKG's Kronos Private Cloud product. They said the hospital has not given them any timeline. I mean, I dont know what to do, she said. } "Hackers are getting more creative and focusing more of their efforts on finding ways to lock up systems that on their face may not seem as critical but that have far-reaching impacts, like HR data," Hannan said. The OhioHealth employee didnt want to be identified out of concern that it would impact her job. More than two months after a cyber attack hit Ultimate Kronos Group, disrupting payroll and timekeeping systems across the world, customers are still being impacted by secondary data breaches. Not fully, but at least in a usable format.". var currentLocation = getCookie("SHRM_Core_CurrentUser_LocationID"); Some of them worked Christmas Day away from their families and have not been compensated for the extra pay they receive working a holiday. "It didn't necessarily mean anything that the system was down. "Some organizations impacted by the attack opted to simply pay people what they were paid in cycles before the outage, but we wanted to make sure employees were paid exactly what they were owed," Page said. As previously reported, the Dec. 13 cyberattack impacted Kronos' private cloud platform, which hosts the vendor's Workforce Central, UKG TeleStaff, Healthcare Extensions, and Banking . Copyright 2022 by WJXT News4Jax - All rights reserved. Let HR Dive's free newsletter keep you informed, straight from your inbox. "We were making decisions that, in retrospect, I think would be considered the best option given the difficult situation we were in. Kronos announced a ransomware attack on its cloud systems on Dec. 13, 2021. They worked thoughtfully and collaboratively, Melgar said. On Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021, UKG, the parent company of workforce management platform Kronos, notified clients using its Kronos Private Cloud product of a "ransomware incident." We took immediate action to investigate and mitigate the issue and have determined that this is a ransomware incident affecting the Kronos Private Cloud-the environment where some of our UKG Workforce Central, UKG TeleStaff, Healthcare Extensions, and Banking Scheduling Solutions are deployed. All pay will be fully trued-up once the Kronos system is restored.. Of the six employers that responded to HR Dive requests for comment, most said they plan to continue their relationship with the company moving forward. ", Executive vice president and chief financial officer, UMass Memorial Health. "There's some employees that still believe that there's a problem, or that we failed them," Melgar said. While AI technology can revolutionize work and improve efficiency, its important to make sure it doesnt perpetuate discrimination, the EEOC vice chair said. From: Enterprise Applications & Solutions Integration. Though we dont have a timetable for when the system will be back up and running, we are working on a temporary time-keeping solution that will help us capture actual hours worked, to help pay our associates accurately, allowing us to transition from paying associates an estimated average, while Kronos remains unavailable.. Action News Jax first told you a couple of weeks ago when the payroll platform Kronos was hacked.. Media Credit: File Photo by Donna Armstrong, Employees should check the Kronos system by Wednesday to ensure last months hours were properly counted, officials said. Asked whether UMass employees were still clocking in using an app or writing down their clock-in and clock-out times manually, Melgar said the organization took an "all of the above" approach. A message from Human Resources: The outage of our Kronos time and leave system which was caused by a ransomware attack in December has been resolved, and the system will be available again starting tomorrow Feb. 1. She recommended that HR teams work with information technology and security teams to develop backup solutions so employers can continue to run payroll if a vendor does not provide its own backup. Kronos outage occurred when cybercriminals in December 2021 performed a ransomware attack on the software affecting the private cloud systems, attendance system, and payroll. Employees should check the Kronos system by Wednesday to ensure last month's hours were properly counted, officials said Newsroom Blog By Lauren Sforza Jan 28, 2022 6:10 PM The University's online time reporting system for employees, Kronos, has been restored after a cyberattack last month possibly compromised GW employees' personal information. "It's natural [that] people were looking inward and thought, 'Why aren't you doing something different?' "In order for either the clinical or for the revenue side to have optimal performance, they have to have full integration and cooperation with the IT folks so that, effectively, everybody has a common, understood responsibility for the outcomes," he continued. At this time, we are not aware of an impact to UKG Pro, UKG Ready, UKG Dimensions, or any other UKG products or solutions, which are housed in separate environments and not in the Kronos Private Cloud. A spokesperson with UKG, the company that operates Kronos Private Cloud, send us this statement: UKG recently became aware of a ransomware incident that has disrupted the Kronos Private Cloud, which houses solutions used by a limited number of our customers. "The question for HR vendors is how they'll limit disruption to their customers as they go about solving problems related to ransomware and other cyberattacks. Because Melgar oversees UMass' finance and IT departments, the outage directly affected areas of the company under his leadership. Sam Grinter, senior principal analyst in the HR practice for Gartner, said he expects many affected UKG clients to move to new platforms with the vendor. Vendors are paying attention, too. Asked how UMass is planning to respond to similar events in the future, Melgar divulged that it is working on an upgrade to its ERP system, which has a timekeeping element within it that could serve as a backup. But in her case there was a problem: she was on leave under the Family Medical Leave Act during those pay periods, during which she received 70 percent of her usual pay. But the fallout may pan out in a variety of other ways in the coming months and years. UMass' immediate attention turned to payroll processing for the payroll period ending Dec. 11, the day before UKG's disclosure. This update may be installed on any KRONOS, regardless of the currently installed system version; it is not necessary to install intermediate upgrades first. Find the latest news and members-only resources that can help employers navigate in an uncertain economy. As a result, UKG continues to strongly recommend our customers work with their leadership to activate their business continuity plans. The incident affected customers using UKG's Kronos Private Cloud product. Please enable scripts and reload this page. In addition to employee-driven suits, Mellen said UKG could potentially face lawsuits from employers. Keolis Commuter Services, a passenger transportation services firm that operates and maintains Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's commuter rail service, "expects that companies like Kronos will have effective business continuity plans in place, just as we do, in the event of any disruptions," Stephan Oehler, vice president of finance, strategy and transformation, said in an email. We are committed to updating you within 24 hours or sooner if new information is available. January 4, 2022. . JACKSONVILLE, Fla. The I-TEAM has received calls and emails from health care workers who said they are frustrated that they are getting no answers from Human Resources and their bosses about when they will be paid in full for their work during the holidays. Email me at jwaugh@wjxt.com. A December cyberattack on HR management solutions provider Kronos is having lasting effects on healthcare workforce management and payroll services. ", "Unfortunately, there was a lot of frustration early on with a lack of communications from Kronos after the attack and how long it would actually result in downtime," Mellen of Forrester said. Topics covered: Employee learning, training, onboarding, mentoring, career development and more. | 1 p.m. The issue has bedevilled IT teams globally who've been forced to spend time in early 2022 supporting their companies with Excel-based workarounds provided by UKG and other related HR/payroll issues. Kronos informed UMass that it had shut down its system because it had noticed some irregularities, according to Melgard. . "What we had basically was joint leadership that accepted joint accountability for the process.". Pemberton said MHI Shared Services contacted Kronos' response team to open a case once it realized that an outage occurred, but he "didn't get any feedback on that" initially. Kronos has initiated national marketing efforts to provide PPE supplies and Covid test kits with direct product sales from PPE manufacturers to clients and governments. "Because of staffing shortages caused by COVID and high patient numbers, many of our nurses were receiving incentive pay for taking on extra shifts, for example, and we didn't want to deny them that pay.". "The first what I would call 'clean' payroll would have been the. using alternative processes for payroll, timekeeping and other vital services. Please confirm that you want to proceed with deleting bookmark. Let HR Dive's free newsletter keep you informed, straight from your inbox. OhioHealth managed to get paychecks out, but as one employee showed NBC4, her unique circumstance highlights a major issue in her employees backup plan. The outage at Kronos has not affected West Virginia alone. What does antisemitic discrimination look like at work? Page said although Franciscan's UKG service was recently restored, there remains considerable work to do to recover from the outage, including loading manual pay records from the past month back into the UKG system. Here's how it moved forward. "It was a while before we found out that there were thousands of employers that were put in this situation.". Dave Zielinski is principal of Skiwood Communications, a business writing and editing company in Minneapolis. The vendor has restored its time-keeping and payroll services after a ransomware attack disrupted the lives of. Copyright 2023 Hatchet Publications, Inc. Proudly Powered by WordPress, Womens basketballs season comes to close after A-10 tourney loss to Rhode Island, Mens basketball cements top-seven spot in conference championship with win over Davidson, Womens basketball wins nailbiter after heroic shot sends team to A-10 quarterfinals. But experts say fallout from the attack will continue, given that some customer data was stolen, companies will have to transition manual records back into UKG systems and shaken clients are questioning their future with the vendor. In February, one New York City transit employee filed a putative collective action alleging that her employer unlawfully delayed payment of earned overtime wages owed to employees beyond their regularly scheduled pay days. This winter, popular payroll, time, and attendance management platform Ultimate Kronos Group (Kronos) had devastating news for 2,000 clients that depend on its cloud-based solutions, Kronos Private Cloud (KPC): On December 11, the company discovered a ransomware attack and disclosed the attack to impacted clients on December 12. KRONOS software version 3.0.3 adds a number of new features, including the support for the KRONOS . If your child will play baseball or softball this spring, youll need to stock up on appropriate clothing and equipment. It would literally take two years to do. **Due to the nature of the incident, it may take up to several weeks to fully restore system availability. UMass runs payroll for the pay period ending Dec. 11, using hours-worked data from a previous period. var temp_style = document.createElement('style'); Topics covered: Culture, executive buy-in, discrimination, training, equal pay, and more. | 1 p.m. Kronos ransomware attack 2021: Outage may impact HR systems for weeks by Michelle Shen, 13 Dec 2021, USA Today; Some Kronos Customers Face Payroll, Scheduling Disruptions From Hack - CFO by Matthew Heller, 15 Dec 2021, CFO; UKG - Wikipedia; hUKG Kronos Private Cloud Status Updates, 22 Dec 2021 Staying thoughtful and engaged regarding DEI topicsas well as listening to employeescan help employers meet goals and retain people. Executives, he continued, need to know that employees may not understand the extent of incidents like the Kronos outage. Company says core services have been restored. "We were making decisions that, in retrospect, I think would be considered the best option given the difficult situation we were in. Three local hospitals were impacted -- UF Health, Baptist Health and Ascension St. Vincents. , Sergio Melgar, chief financial officer at UMass Memorial Health in Massachusetts, said the health system plans to continue using Kronos while implementing a new backup process to handle future incidents. $("span.current-site").html("SHRM MENA "); The health system ultimately took the last finished payroll it had on record and duplicated it, with some adjustments for staff hires and departures. A long ordeal for customers of Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG) is nearing an end. "I understood that if it was not a hardware issue, that the alternative is a cyber software problem, in which case may be the worst of all situations.". We took immediate action to investigate and mitigate the issue, have alerted our affected customers and informed the authorities, and are working with leading cybersecurity experts. Media reports have already begun to take note of challenges filed by workers who say they were owed back pay due to errors caused by the outage. ", Get the free daily newsletter read by industry experts. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. "And so I needed to know, are you going to have a system up? , restoring access to the core functionality of Private Cloud. 0. But not knowing how bad the damage was specifically, because I'm not there, I don't know whether I can say if they did absolutely their best, or they didn't, without having that information. The Universitys online time reporting system for employees, Kronos, has been restored after a cyberattack last month possibly compromised GW employees personal information.