Freight Operator Expeditors Still Working to Recover From Cyberattack
(Cập nhật: 04/03/2022)Cargo bound for export is loaded on a Korean Air Lines Co. freighter at Incheon International Airport in South Korea in 2020.
Expeditors International of Washington Inc., one of the world’s largest logistics operators, told federal regulators it won’t file its annual financial report on time as the company tries to restore all its global systems more than a week after a cyberattack shut down much of its network.
Seattle-based Expeditors expects the fallout from the attack will have a “material adverse impact” on its finances as it continues to repair information systems and restore services to freight customers, the company said in a separate filing Wednesday to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company, the world’s sixth-largest freight forwarder by revenue, according to research group Armstrong & Associates Inc., told customers on Feb. 20 that it had been hit by a targeted cyberattack and said that it had shut down most of its operating systems.
Expeditors said in a customer advisory on Monday that it was “now handling shipments and providing services across most products and expanding recovery across our locations.”
The company didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Expeditors, which reported $16.5 billion in 2021 revenue, operates more than 350 locations in over 100 countries, offering air and ocean freight-forwarding services and customs brokerage as part of its logistics operations.
Additionally, Expeditors asked federal maritime regulators to exempt it from requirements to publish ocean freight rates for 90 days to “allow time for it to cope with the consequences” of the attack, which barred it from accessing and updating the rates, according to a March 2 notice.
Numerous cyberattacks have roiled the operations of the logistics industry in recent years. The global NotPetya ransomware attack in 2017 sent container shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S reeling and cost the company some $300 million. Another brought down ocean carrier Mediterranean Shipping Co.’s website for about five days in the spring of 2020 and another prompted French container shipping line CMA CGM SA to shut down its systems several months later.
The fallout from logistics company hacks includes the challenge of tracking down cargo that’s traveled while systems have been down, said Jake Williams, a senior instructor at Bethesda, Md.-based cybersecurity training company SANS Institute who has worked with logistics companies.
“Restoring from a backup, that’s just the beginning,” he said. “It’s almost like having a car accident, and the tow truck arrives and tows it away. That’s just the beginning of getting your car back to operation.”
Financial services firm Cowen Inc. on Thursday cut its 2022 earnings estimate for Expeditors to $7.25 from $7.55 a share, citing the cyberattack’s short- and long-term costs. The firm said in a research report that Expeditors faces a risk that it “loses business it does not get back.”