The biggest maritime port in Japan, Port NAGOYA, has reportedly been crippled by a cyberattack attributed to Russia. Cargo operators at the port rushed to prevent further delays in shipments caused by the attack.
Located in the Aichi Prefecture, Port NAGOYA fell victim to a Russian ransomware incident. On the 4th of July, at 6:30 in the morning, a terminal in the port experienced a significant outage, as reported by the Nagoya Harbor and Transportation Authority. The ransomware attack targeted the “Nagoya Port Unified Terminal System,” the central system responsible for controlling all container terminals within the port. Consequently, the port faced difficulties loading and unloading containers from trailers.
Until the port can resume normal operations, all loading and unloading activities have been canceled. This situation has resulted in substantial financial losses for the port and has severely limited the flow of goods to and from Japan.
According to the Nagoya Port Authority, the Russian ransomware group known as Lockbit 3.0 was responsible for the attack. Mihoko Matsubara, the chief cybersecurity strategist at NTT Corp., has highlighted that such attacks often exploit vulnerabilities in VPNs and remote desktop protocols. She further emphasized that these types of attacks account for approximately 80% of ransomware attacks in Japan and can be mitigated by regularly updating and patching the software used by businesses for their operations.
As an increasing number of Asian ports adopt automation and move away from manual paperwork and documentation, efficiency is enhanced. However, this shift also exposes these ports to hackers, posing a growing problem for Asia’s shipping networks.
The opinions expressed herein are the author’s and not necessarily those of News2Sea.
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