Consultant Insight: Cyberattacks on supply chains increasing

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is warning American businesses to brace for cyberattacks as Russia ramps up hostilities against Ukraine. [caption id="attachment_76185" align="alignright" width="298"] Cathy Roberson, Cargo Facts Consulting senior consultant and Air Cargo World columnist[/caption] The risk of a cyberattack on global ports is high, Lars Jensen, CEO of shipping consultancy Vespucci Maritime, further cautioned. But cyberattacks on supply chains were increasing even before the Ukraine-Russia crisis. Software supply chain attacks tripled in 2021, according to the 2021 Software Supply Chain Security Report by Argon, an Aqua Security company. The report cites four primary areas of criminal focus: open-source vulnerabilities and poisoning; code integrity issues; exploiting the software supply chain process; and supplier trust to distribute malware or backdoors. Hellman Worldwide Logistics, Swissport and Expeditors International have all recently suffered cyberattacks . The attack on Hellman took place in December 2021 and forced the 3PL to shut down its IT systems to contain the spread of the virus. However, by the time the firm's IT team responded, files were taken and published. Ground services company Swissport detected a data breach in early February and announced that it had been contained. “The affected infrastructure was quickly taken offline, and manual workarounds or fallback systems have remained operational. A full system clean-up and recovery is now underway, and we do not expect any significant delays,” the company said at the time. The cyberattack caused some temporary delays at Zurich Airport (ZRH), according to reports. The airport’s representatives said that 22 flights were delayed by between three and 20 minutes due to the incident. Freight forwarder Expeditors International was the subject of a cyberattack in late February. “Upon discovering the incident, we shut down most of our operating systems globally to manage the safety of our overall global systems environment,” the company said in a Feb. 20 release. “The situation is evolving, and we are working with global cybersecurity experts to manage the situation. While our systems are shut down, we will have limited ability to conduct operations, including but not limited to arranging for shipments of freight or managing customs and distribution activities for our customers’ shipments.” In a March 2 SEC 8-K filing, Expeditors International stated that it had returned to handling shipments and providing service across some of its products and locations, but wasn’t able to provide an estimate of when full operations would resume. “ The company expects that the impact of the prior shutdown and the ongoing impacts of the cyberattack will have a material adverse impact on its business, revenues, expenses, results of operations, cash flows and reputation. At this early stage, the company is unable to estimate the ultimate direct and indirect financial impacts of this cyberattack.” Fighting Cyberattacks Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate passed cybersecurity legislation that would require critical infrastructure owners and civilian federal agencies to report to the CISA within 72 hours if they experience a substantial cyberattack. It would also require critical infrastructure companies to report ransomware payments to the federal government within 24 hours. "As our nation continues to support Ukraine, we must ready ourselves for retaliatory cyberattacks from the Russian government," Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, who was the lead author on the package of bills, said in a statement. This latest cybersecurity bill is in addition to an executive order signed by U.S. President Joe Biden last year to improve the nation’s cybersecurity and protect federal government networks. The Air Cargo Tech Summit, the new airfreight logistics event presented by Air Cargo World , will take place live in Miami from June 6-7. Learn more and register here.

Consultant Insight: Cyberattacks on supply chains increasing

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