A sophisticated cyberattack hit the International Maritime Organization (IMO)

The United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) disclose a cyber attack that disrupted its IT systems.

The United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) is a global standard-setting authority for the safety, security and environmental performance of international shipping. The UN Maritime Organization is the United Nations that develops a regulatory framework that is adopted on a global scale to ensure the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine and atmospheric pollution by ships.

According to the agency, a first cyberattack caused the unavailability of the IMO website, and other web services on September 30.

The agency initially attributed the problem to technical issues, but on October 2, it revealed that the real cause of the problems was a cyberattack.

“A number of IMO’s web-based services became unavailable on Wednesday 30 September. The systems impacted included the IMO public website and other web-based services.” reads a statement published by the organization on its website.

“The email system, including other Internal and external collaboration platforms, are working as normal. The platform used for virtual meeting with simultaneous interpretation has been unaffected and continued to function, without issue, during Wednesday’s Facilitation Committee (FAL) session and is expected to continue to function during today’s final FAL session.”

The access to the website www.imo.org has been restored on Friday 2 October. Initial investigation revealed that the IT systems at the IMO was hit by a sophisticated cyber-attack.

“The interruption of web-based services was caused by a sophisticated cyber-attack against the Organization’s IT systems that overcame robust security measures in place.” continues the statement.

IMO did not share technical details about the attack, the Secretariat is working with international security experts to identify the source of the attack, and further enhance the security of its infrastructure.

At the end of September, the French maritime transport and logistics giant CMA CGM S.A. revealed it was the victim of a malware attack that affecting some servers on its network.

The company currently ranks fourth behind Maersk Line, MSC, and COSCO Shipping Lines, all companies that have been curiously hit by malware attacks in the past.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, UN Maritime Agency)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.