COSCO SHIPPING Lines facility at Long Beach (The China Ocean Shipping Terminal) suffered a cyber attack yesterday (Tuesday 24 July), which affected electronic and network telephone communications with the terminal.

Comparisons were immediately made with the extensive cyber attack suffered by Maersk Line in 2017, but this appears to be a much more isolated event. The Long Beach Press Telegram has called it a ransomware attack, and the terminal is still operating.

Cosco Shipping Lines has released the following statement:

“Due to local network breakdown within our America regions, local email and network telephone cannot work properly at the moment. For safety precautions, we have shut down the connections with other regions for further investigations. 

“So far, all the vessels of our company are operating as normal, and our main business operation systems are performing stably.  We are glad to inform you that we have taken effective measures. Except for above regions affected by the network problem, the business operation within all other regions will be recovered very soon. The business operations in the affected regions are still being carried out, and we are trying [our] best to make a full and quick recovery. We will keep you updated of the latest progress through various channels.

“We apologize for all the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and support”.

At this point no information is available on the details of the cyber attack, but it will only add to calls for the shipping industry to address its use of legacy systems and vulnerability to cyber security incidents. Ironically COSCO SHIPPING did take action after the Maersk event in May 2017. In August COSCO SHIPPING announced a strategic cooperation with China Electronic Technology Cyber Security Co., Ltd. (China Cyber Security) covering COSCO’s “overall cyber information security”.