Capita Calls Amazon Man After Devastating Cyber ​​Attack

New Capita CEO Adolfo Hernandez joins business after taking charge of Amazon's telecommunications division

Capita hired an Amazon executive to direct its recovery after it suffered a £20m cyberattack earlier this year.

The London-listed company that collects the BBC TV license fee, said Adolfo Hernandez, now head of Amazon's telecommunications division , replacing Chief Executive Officer John Lewis.

Mr. Lewis, who has been No. 1 since 2017, is retiring at the end of the year. He will assist with the handover until next July.

The move comes two months after Capita was hit by a cyberattack in which Russian hackers gained access to some customer, supplier and employee data.

All 50,000 of the company's employees were locked out of their IT systems in March, and the company said it would suffer £20 million in damage from the attack.

Capita insists Mr. Lewis was discussing his retirement prior to the ransomware incident in which the Russian cybercriminal gang Black Basta threatened to release stolen information on the dark web.

The network's shares soared. news of Mr. Lewis' departure in mid-morning trading on Monday before Friday's closing price of 27.9 pence.

Mr. Hernandez previously ran professional services firm SDL plc, culminating in merged with translation company RWS Holdings worth £854m three years ago.

Prior to that, he held positions at Alcatel-Lucent and IBM.

> Mr. Lewis leaves Capita as CEO since the end of 2017. Photo: Stuart Nichol

During Mr. Lewis Capita's term, the share price fell by 88% from 250 pence when he took office in December 2017.

Capita Chairman David Lowden hailed Lewis' «outstanding leadership and determination» and said he should be «rightfully proud of his accomplishments.»

The company holds billions of pounds worth of public sector outsourcing and IT contracts, including a £456m deal with the BBC to collect and enforce TV license fees.

Hack by Russian cybercriminal group Black Basta cost a London-based company between £15 million and £20 million.

A few months later, the company was forced to admit the figure as pension funds demanded to know if their clients' information had been leaked.

The hack occurred after Russian criminals gained access to files backed up by Capita software used by 350 pension funds.

The company insisted that the hackers gained access to «0.1% its servers, and said it has taken «extensive steps» to combat data theft.

Lewis said in April that Capita's response to the hack «will go down in history as an example of how to deal with a sophisticated cyberattack.»