The International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) website has been fully restored since Friday, 2 October, according to IMO’s Twitter account, after the cyber attack on Wednesday, 30 September.
“A number of IMO’s web-based services became unavailable,” the IMO admitted in a statement and added that “The interruption of web-based services was caused by a sophisticated cyber-attack against the organization’s IT systems that overcame robust security measures in place.”
Good news, the IMO website is now up and running. Thank you for your patience. pic.twitter.com/TtuMPB9sFI
— IMO (@IMOHQ) October 2, 2020
The IMO was the first United Nation’s (UN) organisation to get ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification for its information security management system in 2015.
The IMO headquarters file servers are located in the United Kingdom, with extensive backup systems in Geneva. The backup and restore system is regularly tested, according to IMO’s announcement.
Following the attack the secretariat shut down key systems to prevent further damage from the attack.
The UN agency dealt with the hacking attack within 2-3 days, while the French shipping group, CMA CGM is still struggling to return to normal operations one week after the initial announcement of the cyber attack.
However, Mercosul and Containerships, two of the group’s subsidiaries, are once again fully operational, according to the latest update that CMA CGM published on Friday, 5 October.
“The CMA CGM Group continues to be fully mobilised to restore access to all its information systems. Our worldwide agency network is gradually being reconnected,” the Marseille-based shipping company added.
