Importers facing ransomware holdups
Danish shipping company MollerMaersk’s New Zealand arm has broken silence as its phone systems restore amidst the fallout of a global cyber attack slowing import operations.
Maersk Australia and New Zealand managing director Gerard Morrison said yesterday afternoon that its phone and email systems had been deliberately shut down by the company to stop the spreading of the malware virus, dubbed NotPetya, that hacked its computers in Europe on Tuesday night.
All of its systems except its phone lines remained down, relaying an ‘‘enormous’’ impact to ports across the globe, he said.
Morrison said Maersk’s New Zealand staff had been keeping operations going manually, using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and hand written information to tell Port of Auckland and Port of Tauranga what to do with the cargo that needed to be unloaded off its ships.
This had slowed the arrival of imports but it was too early to tell how long the delay would be for businesses to receive their incoming goods, he said.
Morrison said staff at its Auckland office were overwhelmed with support from hundreds of its nearby clients that offered phone lines, internet connections and office space.
Port of Tauranga (POT) said late yesterday morning that it currently had one Maersk ship docked but it faced no issues or delays in unloading.
POT commercial manager Leonard Sampson said it was ‘‘business as usual’’ at the site as it continued to communicate with Maersk through an ‘‘alternative method’’, possibly an external Gmail account set up by Maersk to speak with its clients.
Ports of Auckland (POA) spokesman Matt Ball said the first Maersk ship since the cyber attack is due to arrive at the port on Friday.
Ball said its port operations were already suffering the fallout from Maersk’s IT systems shutting down because most of its mutual information was shared digitally.
POA confirmed on Wednesday that it was receiving information about the imported cargo from Maersk manually through a Gmail account.
‘‘Maersk have no means of receiving load lists, discharge lists, or instructions for cargo release. They have even closed down their email servers and are communicating via Gmail.’’
Multinational freight company Mainfreight also said its export and import operations in New Zealand had been affected.
Mainfreight managing director Don Braid said that it was one of hundreds of companies suffering from the communication issue.
A statement released by Mainfreight on Wednesday said it could not book cargo with Maersk nor retrieve or export freight on vessels that were operated by APM Terminals, a subsidiary of Maersk.
Braid said: ‘‘The big issue will be when the ships come into the ports.’’
Maersk’s Morrison said it was now able to accept some cargo bookings through platform INTTRA but was working on creating a manual booking process that would be available to New Zealand clients this morning.
David Ross, chief executive of Kotahi Logistics, which manages shipping logistics for Fonterra, said yesterday afternoon that it was pleased with Maersk’s communication efforts and expected ‘‘minimal disruption’’ to its cargo flow.
Kiwirail spokeswoman Sarah Stuart said yesterday morning that its operations had not been affected despite having Maersk as a client.
Courier company TNT Express said in a statement yesterday that its mail services would be delayed but when contacted it could not say how that would affect New Zea- landers awaiting deliveries.
The FedEx subsidiary, which operates in New Zealand, said in a statement released late yesterday morning: ‘‘Like many other companies and institutions around the world, we are experiencing interference with some of our systems within the TNT network.’’
The cyber attack has led to congestion at some of the 76 ports run by its APM Terminals unit, including in the United States, India, Spain and the Netherlands as well