News / Kintetsu World Express hit by ransomware attack

Dreamstime

Kintetsu World Express (KWE) has been hit by a ransomware cyber-attack which has hobbled its systems for the best part of a week.

The Japanese airfreight forwarder announced an IT outage last week which it said was affecting some customers, but yesterday KWE confirmed: “The cause of the failure is unauthorised access to our system by a third party through ransomware.”

The firm warned part of its operation was still affected, but it had set up an emergency response team, including external advisors, which was investigating the attack’s cause and scope. But it did not comment on how long it would be before the software that had hacked into its system was cleared.

Vespucci Maritime CEO Lars Jensen told The Loadstar: “The timeline for ransomware is determined by the attackers, and even if you pay the ransom there is no 100% guarantee the attackers will release your data.”

He added: “The general advice in cyber security is to not pay. However, this assumes workable back-up solutions are in place. If not, the victim only has two very unpalatable options – pay, and hope this will result in the release of the data, or accept full loss of data and systems and start over.”

Recent years have seen marked increases in the number of cyber-attacks against supply chain operators, including in 2022 on Expeditors that forced the company to not only shut down most of its operations, but also led to it delaying the filing its annual report and facing legal action from customers that claimed they lost business as a result.