The Indian government has confirmed the news of Petya ransomware attack on terminals of JNPT (Jawahar Lal Nehru Port Trust).
The shipping ministry of India has verified that one of its terminals at JNPT has come under attack from ransomware. The centre of attack was Maersk’s Hague office. Soon the government will come out with a detailed report on this attack. In the meantime, it has released the alert.
Maersk which is a maritime conglomerate has confirmed the news as well. Petya ransomware has affected its operations. In a press report, the company said that the ransomware has targeted several segments of its businesses. One of those being the management of JNPT port terminals.
Moreover, the company is on its heels right now to overcome this attack. So that there is a minimum loss to the operations affecting the business. The company is trying hard to prevent further damage to its customers and its partners.
The attack occurred on the night of 27 June 2017. This is a part of the global attack on several locations at once. The attack has crippled central banks and several large corporations in Europe. Moreover, it has affected businesses in the United States as well.
AP Moller-Maersk, is one of the entities under attack by this global assault. This is the same firm which operates the Gateway Terminals India (GTI) at JNPT. The capacity of this particular gateway is 1.8 million tonne standard container units.
The terminal has come to a standstill due to the attack. A senior JNPT official said to the press that they are trying to work manually as far as possible. JNPT is providing all kinds of help to Maersk so that they could rectify it as soon as possible.
One of the steps taken is to provide additional parking space. As there is a possibility of clogging up of the cargo at the harbour.
The Hague-based APM Terminal is also responsible for the operations at Pipavav terminal in Gujarat.
The foreign media has reported that 17 APM terminals are under attack. This leads to a possibility that more is yet to come. APM Terminals is a subsidiary of Maersk. The group will release a detailed report once it has all the information.
The biggest firm under attack is Rosneft of Russia. It is the biggest oil firm in Russia.
A Moscow-based cyber security firm has been able to trace the source of the attack. According to it, the hackers are using a code developed by US National Security Agency (NSA) which was leaked. The same strand of code was used in WannaCry ransomware as well.
Ransomware asks for the crypto-currency transaction to restore access to files. It will be interesting to see whether the attack on JNPT leads to such a point.
