logistics and freight forwarding company Expeditors International fell victim to a cyberattack over the weekend, causing it to halt most of its operations globally.
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With annual gross revenues of approximately $10 billion, Expeditors has 350 locations and more than 18,000 employees worldwide, providing critical logistics solutions for its customers. The services it offers are supply chain, warehousing and distribution, transportation, customs and compliance.
The type of cyberattack has not been revealed, but from the company's description, it looks quite similar to ransomware.
At noon on Sunday, Expeditors announced an outage of its systems worldwide due to a targeted cyberattack.
In a subsequent press release on Sunday evening, the company reiterated that the cyberattack forced it to shut down most of its operating systems worldwide, to maintain “the security of its overall global systems environment.”
The impact is serious for the company, as its operations, which include freight, customs and distribution activities, could cause its customers' shipments to stagnate.
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The systems will continue to be offline until they can be safely restored from backups, the company notes.
At the same time, it is seeking solutions with its carriers and service providers to minimize the impact on its customers. However, there is no estimate on when operations will resume.
A global team of cybersecurity experts is currently investigating the attack and helping the business return to operations.
Although Expeditors did not report the nature of the incident, it was likely hit by ransomware, as shutting down operations globally and restoring them from backups is typically a course of action followed by network encryption.
The company says it will cover all costs for investigating the cyberattack and for its restoration, which are expected to last for a longer period of time.
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Furthermore, Expeditors describes the incident as a “significant event” that “could have a material adverse effect on its business, revenue, results of operations and reputation.”
While it is not possible to estimate when Expeditors International's operations will return to normal, the company says it will provide updates whenit is "able to do so with confidence."
