Cyber-attack on Maersk Line, APMT systems ground activities at Apapa

Cyber-attack on AP Moller-Maersk system which had caused outages at its computer systems across the world on Tuesday may have affected the APM teminals at Apapa, Lagos Nigeria as activities were yesterday brought to halt at the terminal, Primetime Reporters can authoritatively report.

A visit at the terminal yesterday by our correspondent showed that the system was down and all operations at the terminals were brought to halt forcing truckers to queue up along the entrance to the terminal with access denied them following their inability to load containers.

Confirming the development to our correspondent, the Director of Operations, Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), Mr. Chike Aneke stated that they received a mail from APMT informing them that their system was down and that they could no longer continue with their operations at the moment adding that that was why trucks were littered round about Apapa waiting for the system to come and for the trucks to be serviced by the terminal operator.

Aneke however said that they were waiting for an official statement from the APMT so that they would know what to do next as operations were grounded at the terminal at the moment.

“It started exactly about 9.30pm yesterday (Tuesday), that was when we received information that trucks are no longer going in but sometimes, they tell us that system was down and maybe after some minutes, the system will come up but to our greatest surprise, since last night, up till now, the system has not come up. Some said that it was hackers that hacked into their system but what we know is that APMT is not doing anything for now, their operation is zero, now wok, no movement.

“We were told that they are working on it, that their engineers are on it trying to rectify the problem and put the system back to operation. So, we are expecting to that sooner or later, that in no distant time, in fact we can no longer guarantee what will happen next”.

He disclosed that they had earlier suggested to the Management of APMT as well as other terminal operators to procure a backup system as well as a manual system to serve in time of emergency so as to avoid wasting time and money in times like this but regretted that up till now, they were yet to do so.

He therefore hoped that the demurrages that would accrue as a result of this development would be waived for the period their operation was affected so as to further cement the relationship between the consignees and the shippers as anything contrary may leave the consignees with no other option than to advice the shippers to change terminal as according to him,” We always have this problem with APMT”.

He continued,” in other terminals, we don’t experience this kind of system failure, it is peculiar to APMT, I don’t know the type of system they are using, whether it is up to date or obsolete, I cannot tell but what I know is that if you go to other terminals, the intermittent problem is peculiar to APMT”.

Asked if they had notified the Nigerian Shippers’ Council on the development, he said, “We have not because it just started yesterday. Right now, I am receiving calls from other stakeholders; maybe we will call for a meeting to know what we will do because we cannot continue like this.

Reacting to the development, the National Publicity Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Dr. Kayode Farinto noted that he still don’t want to believe that the APMT system was either down or hacked into as according to him, the incident happened last year and for almost fourteen days, APMT could not deliver containers to the agents prompting them to take the case to the Nigerian Shippers’ Council which asked that APMT should refund one billion Naira to the agents which he said had not been done up till now.

He recalled that he mentioned the issue of APMT getting a backup system in place in case of system failure at a Presidential meeting held in Lagos last two weeks but Mr. Daniel Odibe of APMT who represented the organization at the meeting told the gathering that APMT has a backup system in place wondering what has happened to the backup system he claimed was in place.

“So, if by now there is a case of either hacking into the system or system failure, I am using this opportunity to call on all licensed customs agents who have consignments at the APMT to forward all their debit notes to me and whatsoever is the cost of demurrage or the cost of inconvenience, we will definitely take it up with APMT legally this time around. That means that there is no backup and because even last year, I remember they said they have a manual backup even the manual backup could not be used until after fourteen days. So, if it happens again exactly one year after and we are still experiencing that same issue, then APMT is definitely not serious, they are taking Nigerians for granted and may be, they believe that we are not serious. So, Nigerians should be up and doing by asking them why this should happen”.

Ships & Ports reported yesterday that the attack came as computer servers across Europe and in India were hit by a major ransomware attack quoting a twitter message by Maersk as saying, “We can confirm that Maersk IT systems are down across multiple sites and business units due to a cyber-attack,”.

The breakdown affected all business units at Maersk, including container shipping, port and tug boat operations, oil and gas production, drilling services, and oil tankers, the company said.

The IT breakdown could extend across the company’s global operations, a spokeswoman said, but could not say how Maersk’s operations were impacted.

With a fleet of more than 600 container vessels, Maersk is the world’s biggest shipping company with a market share of around 16 percent. The company handles around 25 percent of all containers shipped on the key Asia-Europe route.

Maersk’s port operator APM Terminals was also hit, with 17 shipping container terminals run by APM Terminals, including two in Rotterdam and 15 in other parts of the world, hacked.

The computers were reportedly infected by ransomware that encrypted hard drives at APM Terminals.

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