iscover
Share this article on:
Powered by
MOMENTUM
MEDIA
Norwegian company DNV has reported it has fallen victim to a ransomware attack and has taken its shipping servers offline.
The company made the announcement last week after discovering the attack, which was instigated on 7 January 2023. In response, the company has taken the servers for its ShipManager software down.
ShipManager is a modular ship management system which lets users schedule maintenance, manage shipboard safety and crew, monitor hull integrity, and analyse shipping data. While the servers are offline, DNC has stated that “All users can still use the onboard, offline functionalities of the ShipManager software”.
No other DNV services are affected, nor does the company believe any other software or data has been compromised.
The outage is currently affecting 1,000 vessels, belonging to 70 businesses. This is out of a total of 7,000 ships operated by 300 customers using DNV’s ShipManager and Navigator software.
“DNV experts are working closely with global IT security partners to investigate the incident and to ensure operations are online as soon as possible,” DNV said in a statement. “DNV is in dialogue with the Norwegian police about the incident.”
A number of high-profile attacks in 2022 have brought such incidents into the mainstream media. Recent incidents in Australia include the Medibank, Optus, and Fire Rescue Victoria attacks in 2022, while in the US, the Colonial oil pipeline was hit in 2021, and a whole school district was taken offline. Meanwhile, in the UK, the Royal Mail and health and education organisations have been impacted.
CrowdStrike’s 2022 Global Threat Report detailed an 82 per cent increase in ransomware-related data leaks, with 2,686 incidents reported in 2022 compared to 1,474 in 2021.
Just as alarmingly, incidents of attacks have increased across every business sector in that timeframe.
No threat actors have yet taken responsibility for the DNV attack.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
Be the first to hear the latest developments in the cyber industry.
