World's Largest Shipping Line and Container Terminals Victims of Cyber Attack

WORLDWIDE – Danish shipping conglomerate AP Moller Maersk has confirmed that it's IT infrastructure has been subject to a major cyber-attack affecting several business units around the world. Maersk are just one of many international companies affected by this latest round of cyber-attacks with several of Ukraine's businesses and Russia's top oil producer Rosneft reporting problems as well as international industrial giants such as RB, responsible for household brands such as Dettol, Harpic and Durex.

Maersk says that it is assessing the situation as Maersk Line’s website remained down throughout the day and reports of seventeen container facilities operated by APM Terminals have been affected and as such, all operations had to be stopped. The hackers have allegedly demanded $300 million worth of Bitcoins in order to restore the company’s system.

Rosneft said that its servers were facing a ‘powerful hacker attack’ though its oil production operation remained unaffected. Neither Maersk nor Rosneft confirmed what kind of attack they were under.

Ukraine seems to have come out the worst with some confirmed ransomware attacks, with other attacks blamed on an ‘unknown virus’, on the country’s National Bank, Government websites, major energy companies such as state-owned Ukrenergo and Kyivenergo, as well as the country’s transportation infrastructure, with Kiev's Borispol Airport’s warning of delays after the company’s official website and flight schedules down.

Initially the attack was said to have emanated from Ukraine but, after analysis by experts, the original code is said to be too sophisticated for production by a normal class of hacker. Allegations have been made that this code was one of several stolen from America’s National Security Agency (NSA) and was implanted originally into the Ukrainian tax agency. The addition of the ransom demand is thought to be a cruder affair, tacked on to the original insidious programme.