Suspecting Cyber Attack, MSC Reports Network Outage – Update

Mediterranean Shipping Company says it has experienced a network outage and it cannot rule out the possibility of a cyber attack, the company said Friday. 

The outage began in one of MSC’s data centers in Geneva, Switzerland and the company shut down its servers in response. In an update late Friday, the company said the issue only concerns its headquarters in Geneva.

“In light of the network outage incurred on one of the data centers in Geneva, we decided to close down the servers in our Headquarters as a first safety measure – since security is our top priority,” MSC said on Twitter. 

“At this point in time we cannot rule out entirely the possibility of a malware, but we can confirm that our agencies worldwide network is working. And that our local agents support customers for all services as usual.

“We’re working towards full recovery in the shortest time possible,” it added. 

An earlier post said MSC’s services and operations were working as usual. 

At time of publishing, MSC’s global website and its myMSC.com, its customer portal and booking platform, were inaccessible. 

An update late Friday said its investigation has conclude that the issue is only related to its servers at its headquarters and customers can still make bookings via phone or email, which is not impacted. It did not elaborate on the cause of the incident.

“After several hours of investigations, we can now confirm that the issue is related to our Headquarters in Geneva only,” the company said in a string of Tweets. “The servers in the Headquarters have been shut down, and we’ve deployed a team of experts who are working hard to ensure that we can see return to normal operating conditions.”

“All our departments, terminals, depots etc. operate without disruptions,” the company added.

Swiss-based Mediterranean Shipping Company is the second largest container shipping line, controlling 571 ships representing 16% share of the world’s TEU capacity. It also participates in the 2M Alliance with Maersk, the world’s leading container line. 

The outage can’t help but recall the 2017 NotPetya malware attack that crippled Maersk’s global networks and disrupted its container shipping operations for weeks, costing Maersk some $300 million. 

The outage also comes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is already straining global supply chains.