Denmark-based shipping and logistics company AP Moller-Maersk was hit by cyber ransomware NotPetya yesterday afternoon, June 27th. The group stated that “we can confirm that Maersk IT systems are down across multiple sites and business units due to a cyber-attack. We continue to assess the situation. The safety of our employees, our operations and customers’ business is our top priority.” Maersk Line UK also stated that “unfortunately our computer systems here in the UK and Ireland are down”, noting that its phone systems were operating and that they were on hand to answer any questions.

NotPetya, a development of the earlier ransomware Petya, attacks the Master File Table, rather than the files themselves. This is both quicker and easier than encrypting every single file, although the earlier version itself had weaknesses that could be exploited to unlock the unavailable files. In the attack yesterday Ukraine appeared to have been particularly badly hit, initially leading to a hypothesis that the cyber attack was political rather than economic. However, the demands for Bitcoin and evidence of attacks in Poland, Italy, Germany, France, the US and Russia followed the pattern set by the releasers of the WannaCry virus earlier this year.

http://insurancemarinenews.com/insurance-marine-news/maersk-hit-ransomware-virus-notpetya/