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Cyber-attack wiped up to $300m from Maersk’s books

Søren Skou, the CEO of A.P. Moller – Maersk, has for the first time put an approximate dollar figure on the hit in revenues the Danish conglomerate suffered in the wake of being hit by the malware Not Petya at the end of June.

Speaking while unveiling the company’s keenly anticipated second quarter results, Skou said the cyber-attack could have wiped as much as $300m from the company’s sales. The Financial Times had suggested last month that Maersk was the hardest hit of all companies worldwide following the Not Petya attack.

“In the last week of the quarter we were hit by a cyber-attack, which mainly impacted Maersk Line, APM Terminals and Damco. Business volumes were negatively affected for a couple of weeks in July and as a consequence, our Q3 results will be impacted. We expect the cyber-attack will impact results negatively by $200m to $300m,” Skou said. However, the Danish company has not changed its full year results guidance.

Underlying profit for the group in Q2 improved from $134m to $389m with Maersk Line contributing with an underlying profit of $327m. However, as a result of post-tax impairments of $732m related to Maersk Tankers and APM Terminals, the reported result was a loss of $264m.

“Maersk Line is again profitable delivering in line with guidance, with revenue growing by $1bn year-on-year in the second quarter. The profit was $490m higher than the same quarter last year, based on higher rates,” Skou commented.

The cyber-attack on Maersk marked the most high profile online hit of a shipping firm to date, something Esben Poulsson, chairman of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), told Splash should serve as a wakeup call for the industry.

William Doyle, a Federal Maritime Commissioner based in Washington DC, also commented on the attack last month, saying: “This cyber-attack happened to Maersk, the largest ocean carrier in the world. If it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone—all of us need to redouble your efforts and secure the best IT system protections.”

Sam Chambers

Starting out with the Informa Group in 2000 in Hong Kong, Sam Chambers became editor of Maritime Asia magazine as well as East Asia Editor for the world’s oldest newspaper, Lloyd’s List. In 2005 he pursued a freelance career and wrote for a variety of titles including taking on the role of Asia Editor at Seatrade magazine and China correspondent for Supply Chain Asia. His work has also appeared in The Economist, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and The International Herald Tribune.

Comments

  1. It is quite surprising that even after Wannacry Outbreak in May 2017, Microsoft Patches and Antivirus were not updated in MNC Companies like Maersk. Even basic flaws like SMB Port Sharing were not fixed.

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