Seventeen shipping container terminals run by APM Terminals have been hacked since Wednesday afternoon.
Marine Link reported that there were two terminals in Rotterdam and 15 in other parts of the world that were affected. APM Terminals is a subsidiary of Danish shipping and oil concern Maersk which has confirmed it has been affected by the global cyber-attack, known as Petya. Computers have allegedly been infected by ransomware that encrypted their hard drives.
A.P. Moller-Maersk has confirmed that its IT systems are down due to a massive cyber attack called Petya that has hit major firms, airports and government departments across the globe.
The Ukraine was the first country to be hit by the virus, which spread its way across Europe on Tuesday, 27 June.
According to the Port Technology news, it is believed to be ransomware — a piece of malicious software that shuts down a computer system and then demands an extortionate sum of money to fix the problem.
Danish media has reportedly said that the Maersk offices in Britain, Panama and Venezuela have been affected. APM Terminals, Maersk's global terminal operating arm, has also been struck in ports in the US and Netherlands.
Global repercussions of cyber attack
In the Netherlands the malware hit the APM container terminal in the port of Rotterdam, pharmaceutical MSD and package carrier TNT.
Ransomware blocks access to files on infected computers. Owners are then instructed to pay a sum of money – a ransom – to regain access to their files. This form of the virus makes the infected computers completely inaccessible, according to NOS. There is no sense in paying the ransom – victims are instructed to send proof of payment to an email address, but the provider took the address offline. Which means that no messages will be received.
Several cyber security firms in the Netherlands also report that their clients were affected. The Dutch police implemented "precautionary measures" against a cyber-attack that left some of the functionalities on the police website unavailable. These measures likely have to do with this ransomware attack.
The Ukraine seems to be the primary target of the attack. About 60 percent of the infections are in the Ukraine, and according to computer security company ESET, the attack started in the country. Ransomware infected the networks of the Ukrainian government, banks, energy companies and the Kiev airport.
Companies in Russia, the United Kingdom, France, India and Poland were also infected.
According to NOS, this virus is similar to the WannaCry virus that caused worldwide havoc in May, but is in fact a different virus. It spreads very quickly and uses the same security issue to infect computers. Exactly which ransomware is involved is still unclear.
