Australian businesses waiting on deliveries by FedEx’s TNT Express say they have been left in limbo after the company was “significantly affected” by a worldwide cyber-attack. In a statement, FedEx said TNT’s operations and communications systems had been disrupted, and the financial impact “could be material”.[1]
Stuck in the middle of the chain are small business owners, who are suffering from non-delivery of cargo and lack of information from their service providers. They are turn are getting complaints from their own customers in cases where time-critical shipments appear to be in limbo. Some business operators say they have been unable to access shipping information on TNT’s website, nor could they get through to the customer service line, with shipments now overdue by several days and no tracking data available. TNT said it is continuing to implement contingency plans to mitigate the impact of the virus, while FedEx said its other companies were unaffected and there did not appear to have been a data breach.[2]
Meanwhile, further to our report three days ago on the world’s largest shipping line, A.P. Moller-Maersk, their website offers the following updated information:
“We are pleased to share that we are making great progress in getting back online and have been able to restore our network as well as some of the key applications… Terminals are increasing their productivity by the hour, with most terminals performing at full capacity again… We do still have some ports around the world where we are working through documentation challenges but for all we are either making progress or have a plan to do so… We remain open for business and are accepting bookings… We are aware many customers are also keen to know when we can issue Bill of Lading. This is a high priority for us, in our system delivery pipeline and we look forward to sharing news with you soon on this matter. We also see in all markets – except one – that our Intermodal deliveries are functioning, and we have seen good improvements in our deliveries in e.g. UK and India. We have experienced some challenges on import documentation and are extremely grateful for our customers’ and partners’ understanding in this.â€[3]
All individuals and organisations connected to the internet are vulnerable to cyber attack – and the threat is growing. This week’s major ransomware attack uses a variant of the Petya or GoldenEye ransomware and is currently claiming victims across the world. It encrypts the entire hard disk drive, enabling the attacker to forcefully crash the computer before demanding a ransom. It spreads automatically from one computer to another using multiple vulnerabilities in the operating system.
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