Online Retailers Warn About Shipping Delays After Cyberattack

Online retailers are warning customers to prepare for delays after a cyberattack caused major disruptions within the shipping industry.

According to AP News, several eCommerce firms issued warnings after the sudden outbreak of malicious software that centered on Ukraine and spread to major multinational companies, including Danish global shipping firm A.P. Moller-Maersk and FedEx Corp. subsidiary TNT.

Several container port terminals across the world are struggling to get back online, and Enrique Frisancho, the owner of Barcelona-based smartphone film accessory firm Shoulderpod, has warned customers it might be difficult to say when TNT-fulfilled deliveries would arrive.

A.P. Moller-Maersk said Thursday that most of its terminals are now operational, though some terminals are “operating slower than usual or with limited functionality.” Problems have been reported across the shippers’ global business.

The European Union’s security commissioner, Julian King, said that attacks are “becoming more strategic because they endanger our critical infrastructure and indeed our democratic processes. They’re also becoming more endemic, as those threats permeate and spread from our IT networks into the vital operations of our business sectors and our public sectors.”

The cyberattacks affected ports, hospitals and banks around the world, including  a Pennsylvania health network that was unable to offer lab and diagnostic services at 14 community and neighborhood offices. It was also unable to provide its services at two hospitals, Heritage Valley Beaver and Heritage Valley Sewickley, while lab and diagnostic services at its satellite offices were shut down.

And a small Danish ship repair company says the malicious software forced it to re-order engine parts because the track-and-trace parcel system with Dutch-based transport company TNT is down. Parts the ship repair company reordered are being “driven up by road by a courier we ordered and at our expenses,” while another shipment is stuck in Finland.