Pierluigi Paganini August 17, 2017

The transportation giant Maersk announced that it would incur hundreds of millions in U.S. dollar losses due to the NotPetya ransomware massive attack.

A.P. Moller-Maersk, the transportation and logistics firm, announced Tuesday that it would incur hundreds of millions in U.S. dollar losses due to the NotPetya ransomware massive attack.

According to the second quarter earnings report, there were expecting losses between $200 million and $300 million due to “significant business interruption” because the company was forced to temporarily halt critical systems infected with the ransomware.

“As soon as A.P. Moller – Maersk became aware that systems had been affected, action to respond was initiated including closing down infected networks. The malware was contained to only impact the container related businesses of A.P. Moller” reads the report.  “A.P. Moller – Maersk also remained in full control of all vessels throughout the situation, and all employees were safe.”

The company said its Maersk Line APM Terminals and Damco systems were completely shut down in response to the incident as a precaution measure.

“These system shutdowns resulted in significant business interruption during the shutdown period, with limited financial impact in Q2, while the impact in Q3 is larger, due to temporary lost revenue in July (see guidance for 2017),” continues the report.

NotPetya hit hundreds of companies causing serious million of dollars damages, early August, the US pharmaceutical company Merck revealed that the massive NotPetya cyberattack has disrupted its worldwide operations.

Other major companies affected by the NotPetya attack were the Ukraine’s central bank, Russian oil giant Rosneft, advertising group WPP, and the law firm DLA Piper.

Two of the world’s largest consumer goods companies suffered serious problems, on July the companies Mondelez and Reckitt Benckiser warned of the impact of the NotPetya attack on their revenues.

The Mondelez International company estimated the NotPetya attack would cut three percentage points from second-quarter sales growth because of disruptions to shipping and invoices caused by the cyber attack.

The Reckitt Benckiser, the maker of Nurofen painkillers and Durex condoms, said it expected sales would be hit Q2 by an estimated £110m this year.

The company said that its expected overall profit to still exceed 2016 margins despite the impact of the cyberattack.

“This cyber-attack was a previously unseen type of malware, and updates and patches applied to both the Windows systems and antivirus were not an effective protection in this case,” the company said. “In response to this new type of malware, A.P. Moller – Maersk has put in place different and further protective measures and is continuing to review its systems to defend against attacks.”

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – NotPetya ransomware, Maersk)

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