The French logistics and maritime transport giant has recently fallen prey to a cyber attack. The CMA CGM Group faced a malware attack, following which, they pulled the services offline to contain the attack.
CMA CGM Suffered Malware Attack
Reportedly, the international shipping giant CMA CGM Group has suffered a malware attack. CMA CGM is French container transportation and shipping giant and is currently the fourth largest in the world.
The firm initially disclosed the incident on Monday via a tweet, when they hinted at the problem as an IT issue. Yet, they admitted the unavailability of the services.
External access to CMA CGM IT applications are currently unavailable.
IT teams are working on resolving the incident to ensure business continuity.
For all bookings, please contact your local agency.
We will keep you posted regularly on the current situation.— CMA CGM Group (@cmacgm) September 28, 2020
However, in a subsequent update, they confirmed a cyber attack on the logistics’ systems. They revealed that due to the attack on the peripheral servers, they had to pull their services offline to contain the malware.
UPDATE/ The CMA CGM Group (excluding CEVA Logistics) is currently dealing with a cyber-attack impacting peripheral servers.
As soon as the security breach was detected, external access to applications was interrupted to prevent the malware from spreading. https://t.co/KPoceJsbly— CMA CGM Group (@cmacgm) September 28, 2020
They further posted a security notice on their website with brief details about how they would proceed with the bookings. As the notice read,
Our teams are fully mobilized and access to our information systems is gradually resuming.
The CMA CGM network remains available to the Group’s customers for all booking and operation requests.
They also clearly mentioned that the attack affected CMA CGM excluding CEVA Logistics.
Ragnar Locker Ransomware Suspected
For now, the firm hasn’t revealed many details. Nonetheless, according to Lloyd’s List Editorial, the firm has suffered a ransomware attack.
According to their report, the company has become a victim of the Ragnar Locker ransomware. (Not to be confused with Ragnarok that is a separate malware).
The attackers haven’t disclosed a specific ransom for the attack. However, as per the email shared by LLE, they have asked the French giant to contact within two days to “get a special price” for the decryption key. Whereas, in the case of failure to revert to the attackers anytime soon, contacting them would become difficult.
In 2018, world’s third largest shipping company, COSCO, also suffered a ransomware attack that disrupted its network in American region.
