Hackers Target Marijuana Sales System

In a headline that everyone should have known was coming — the hackers are going after the stoners.

According to reports in the BostonGlobe, it seems some cybercriminals have encouraged others to just say no to drugs by targeting the systems of MJ Freeway, a backend system that tracks sales and inventory and helps pot dispensaries keep their regulatory paperwork in order.

The good news is that no customer or patient data made it out the door. The worst reported effect was large amounts of corrupted data and a slow tedious recovery process.

Harsh toke, bros.

Harsher, though, is trying to run a dispensary with the sales system down — as the state’s legal cannabis dealers have been operating without for a week. NETA (New England Treatment Access, a medical non profit) has warned medical marijuana patients that processes may be slower than normal during the immediate future since sales staff are handling orders manually. Some dispensaries have decided that they are better suited closing temporarily than trying to run without their sales system.

According to a statement released on video by MJ Freeway CEO Amy Poinsett, the attack took out both MJ Freeway’s production and backup servers. The attack seems to have been purely malicious in intention — but all can be set right.

The recovery process, however, is something of a slog since, it requires one-on-one work with clients to recover data and migrate to new infrastructure.

Poinsett noted, “it’s taking more time than we’d like it to.”

And too long for some of their customers.  NETA, for example, has recently updated its website:

“Our staff has been working night and day with [MJ Freeway] to get us back online, but to no avail. Therefore, we have decided to transition to a new system.”