News / Despite 'cyber attack', MSC says cargo is still flowing seamlessly

Photo: © Sheila Fitzgerald

MSC’s e-commerce capabilities continue to be hampered by what appeared to be a cyber attack last week.

Yesterday, the world’s second largest carrier said the “network outage” that began on Thursday evening was limited to its headquarters in Geneva and its online operations, while its global office network was unaffected.

“MSC operates different IT systems to separate headquarters from the agencies network to ensure that in case of an issue they cannot affect each other. In this case, the issue is limited to one of our data centres in Geneva, effecting solely some internal data processes, MSC.com, MyMSC and direct EDI, for a few customers.

“Our agencies worldwide continue to work as usual; all MSC departments, terminals and depots are serving customers regularly and cargo is flowing without interruptions.

“We are in continuous dialogue with our business partners and we have their full support,” it said.

This was confirmed in a LinkedIn post by Kuehne + Nagel’s head of sea freight Otto Schact, who said his team had been in contact “within minutes” of the outage and said the way MSC and KN teams developed a response was “proof of a strong and true partnership”.

Meanwhile, MSC reminded shippers and forwarders that they could continue to make bookings on platforms such as INTTRA.

“All bookings are managed securely and efficiently, and the issue affecting Geneva headquarters poses no threat to parties doing business with MSC. Customers can continue to place bookings via email or phone as well.

“Also, we can confirm the safety of our communication system as MSC adopts all necessary security protocols when it comes to exchanging EDI files and emails,” it said.