Danish shipping giant Moller-Maersk has assured New Zealand ports and freight firms that its operations are intact despite falling victim to a cyber attack this week.
Maersk’s Asia Pacific chief executive Robbert van Trooijen said on Friday that its ships were sailing and cargo bookings could be made through an external platform, but despite being “open for business” some of its IT systems remained down.
The international container carrier was forced to shut down all of its computer and communication systems and set up an external Gmail account when a malware, dubbed NotPetya, infected its computers in Europe on Tuesday.
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Maersk containers are due to arrive at Port of Auckland on Friday.
Its latest public statement released on its restored website early Friday said it was “progressing towards technical recovery” but could not confirm when all of its its systems would be up and running again.
The company’s New Zealand arm broke its forced silence on Thursday when its phone lines were restored.
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Mearsk’s Asia Pacific chief executive Robbert van Trooijen says its ships continue to sail after this week’s cyber attack.
Maersk Australia and New Zealand managing director Gerard Morrison said the company had kept its import and export operations going by using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and handwritten information to instruct Ports of Auckland and Port of Tauranga what to do with its cargo.
Morrison said the cyber attack slowed unloading of vessels.
Ports of Auckland confirmed its handling of Maersk containers had slowed.
Port of Tauranga said earlier this week that its imports had not faced any delays but it was communicating through an alternative method.
The first Maersk containers to arrive in New Zealand since the attack docked at Ports of Auckland on a Hamburg Sud ship early on Friday.
Port spokesman Matt Ball said port staff were unloading the Maersk cargo with no delays.
New Zealand Manufacturing and Exporters Association chief executive Dieter Adam said he had not yet received any reports of businesses not receiving imported goods.
The cyber attack that mainly targeted Ukraine congested some of the 76 ports run by APM Terminals, including in the United States, India, Spain and the Netherlands as well as New Zealand.
Maersk handles one in seven containers shipped worldwide.
Morrison said New Zealand’s ports were facing similar problems to the rest of the world.
New Zealand’s government cyber safety authority, Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert NZ), said it had not received any reports of infections from the malware in New Zealand.
Cert NZ director Rob Pope said on Friday that businesses here were only impacted by precautions being taken by multinational companies to protect from NotPetya.
He urged businesses to make their staff aware of the threat and for any one who had had their computer compromised by a ransomware or malware virus to come forward.
Cadbury owner Mondelez, law firm DLA Piper and advertising giant WPP were also victims of NotPetya.
Symantec cyber security manager Nick Savvides said on Wednesday that the malware attack was similar to the WannaCry ransomware attack that affected Windows computer users last month.
However, there is growing speculation NotPetya was not designed to make money but instead to do economic damage.
The malware spreads automatically through company networks once one machine is infected, but appears not to be programmed to automatically leap from one organisation to another.
– Stuff