msc

Geneva-headquartered container shipping line MSC could have been the subject of a cyberattack, after its website, msc.com, went down on the eve of the Easter holiday.

The company confirmed on Twitter that “msc.com and myMSC are currently not available as we have experienced a network outage in one of our data centres.

“We are working on fixing the issue. Our services and operations are working as normal,” it added.

SeaIntelligence Consulting partner Lars Jensen wrote in a LinkedIn post today that his sources suggested it was the result of a successful cyberattack.

However, he added that the full impact of the possible attack on MSC’s operations remained unclear.

“Mail services are still working and MSC has an IT infrastructure where many services are locally operated and hence it is unclear presently which exact IT tools are operational and which are not.”

Sources close to the company suggested that its internal response implied that a cyberattack had not taken place – it has a procedure in place where employees automatically receive an email with instructions should they have to shut everything down, as would be the case in a successful cyberattack, and this had so far not been sent out.

The loss of service at msc.com echoes the NotPetya attack that hit Maersk in 2018 and ultimately cost the company some $300m.

However, Mr Jensen was also keen to stress that the actual target of the NotPetya attack was the Ukrainian state, and Maersk – as well as FedEx-owned TNT – were “collateral damage”.

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