‘We’re not going to abandon Ingram. If we had the mindset that any partner who experiences a breach is off the table, we’d have zero partners. All the major companies, this is part of the game as you grow,’ says Antwine Jackson, president and founder of Enitech.
Ingram Micro is making “important progress” on restoring its transactional business after it suffered a ransomware attack ahead of the July 4 weekend.
In a statement posted to its website Monday, the Irvine, Calif.-based distributor said that “[s]ubscription orders, including renewals and modifications, are available globally and are being processed centrally via Ingram Micro’s support organization.
“Additionally, we are now able to process orders received by phone or email from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, India, China, Portugal and Nordics.”
“Some limitations still exist with hardware and other technology orders, which will be clarified as orders are placed,” the statement continued. “We thank our customers and vendor partners for their patience as our restoration efforts progress.”
[Related: Ingram Micro Hit By SafePay Ransomware Attack: Report]
To place subscription orders, Ingram urged partners to contact Unified Support. For all other inquiries, partners should contact their sales representative, according to the statement.
The Safepay ransomware organization is responsible for the attack, according to Bleeping Computer. Ingram Micro proactively took their systems offline.
As of Tuesday, there was no word on when online ordering will be available in the U.S., however, the chatbot feature in their flagship Xvantage platform is working, according to their Unified Support page.
And despite not all systems being back up and running after five days, many partners have pledged their loyalty and are sticking by Ingram’s side.
Mark Essayian, president of Irvine, Calif.-based KME Systems, told CRN that Ingram “is a good partner.” “If they could fix it in a second, they would. But they’ve got to do it correctly and they know what’s at stake.”
Essayian, a member of Ingram Micro’s Trust X Alliance, said the ransomware attack isn’t a failure but is a test of long-standing relationships.
“How many times have I called Ingram and said, ‘I need this urgently,’ and they jump through flaming hoops like a poodle? They’ve earned credit on the ledger,” he said. “You don’t walk away from that because of a bad week. They’re loyal to me and I’m loyal to them.”
While the attack has Essayian temporarily returning to more manual processes, he isn’t giving up on his “preferred distributor.”
“It’s a pain in the butt, but it’s not critical,” he said. “We’ve adapted. We’re telling clients what’s happening, full disclosure.”
Despite the delays, Essayian’s clients, especially those in the IT space, have shown patience.
“I haven’t had one client say, ‘I’m going to leave you,’” he said. “When you’re talking to IT people, they understand. They know there are rules in ransomware events. They know it’s not pretty. If this drags on for two weeks, we’ll have a different conversation. But I don’t see that happening. I know they’re working on it.”
Guy Baroan, another Trust X Alliance partner, cited his longstanding relationship, trust in Ingram’s leadership team and empathy drawn from his own brushes with cybersecurity threats as the reason why he’s “not walking away” from the distributor.
“I’ve reached out to people I know there and said, ‘If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know,’” said Baroan, president of Elmwood Park, N.J.-based Baroan Technologies. “When you’re going through something like this, you find out who your true friends are. This is not the time to leave someone sick.”
That loyalty is echoed by others who see the hack not as a sign of failure but a test of resilience.
“We’ve been working with Ingram since the early 2000s,” Baroan said. “They’re a great organization with great people. We’re not going anywhere.”
Antwine Jackson, president and founder of Raleigh, N.C.-based MSP Enitech, said that while his MSP has backup distributors, not every MSP is as diversified.
“We’re not going to abandon Ingram,” he told CRN. “If we had the mindset that any partner who experiences a breach is off the table, we’d have zero partners. All the major companies, this is part of the game as you grow.”
Instead, Jackson (pictured above) hopes the attack serves as a lesson for others in the channel community.
“I just really hope the Pax8s of the world and the TD Synnex’s of the world, they learn from this and the whole community gets stronger,” he said. “We’ll continue working with Ingram, but this should be a lesson for all of us. How did this breach occur? What can we do to be better, stronger and more prepared?”
