July 30, 2018 - Chinese state-owned shipping conglomerate COSCO announced Monday that its North American operations have "totally recovered" from last week's cyber attack, which forced the firm to partially shut down its networks. However, the firm's busy LA/Long Beach operations are still using Yahoo Mail as an alternative to their corporate email for customer communications, and its North American website (www.cosco-usa.com) now redirects to a page on the parent company's domain.
“All communication channels including telephone, email, and electronic data exchange have been restored," said COSCO's corporate headquarters in a statement.
Separately, in a frequently-asked-questions list posted to its temporary USA site, COSCO said that its customer service email system is not yet back to normal at LA and Long Beach. To book cargo for that port region, customers are advised to use an EDI channel, book online or send an email to a temporary Yahoo Mail address (cosaglaxbooking@yahoo.com). For other ordinary functions and departments - bills of lading, COD, VGM, inbound container release, marine operations, hazardous goods, and many more - the firm has created a list of about 50 temporary yahoo.com email addresses to communicate with its partners.
The attack hit COSCO's North American operations last Tuesday, and at about 2000 hours Eastern time, the firm shut down the COSCO Shipping North America computer network as a precautionary measure. The firm said that business operations in other regions were still proceeding, and it was working to make a "full and quick recovery." COSCO has not reported any impact on its vessels or on its port operations abroad.
Maersk Group suffered a much more damaging cyberattack last year when the Russian-launched "Not-Petya" malware virus spread to networks at Maersk Line and at APM Terminals. The world's top maritime logistics firm needed nearly one month to restore all of its customer-facing electronic services after the attack, and the total financial impact was estimated at about $250 million.
Source: Maritime Executive
