The Belgian river port of Ghent and the Antwerp-Zeebrugge platforms (now merged port companies) were also affected, the sources said.
Jelle Vreeman, executive of the Riverlake specialized company, said that “there was a cyber attack on several terminals, several of them have operating difficulties.”
According to the expert, the operating programs of these terminals have been invaded “and they cannot process the unloading of ships. Basically, their operating system is not working.”
For its part, the German prosecutor’s office also confirmed that it had launched an “extortion investigation” following a hacking attack (known in English as ‘ramsonware’, or data hijacking) to several of its port terminals.
Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) agency for police cooperation (Europol, based in the Netherlands) announced that it had offered its support to the authorities of the affected countries.
“At this stage the investigation is ongoing and it is a very sensitive stage,” said a Europol spokeswoman, Claire Georges.
Preliminary information suggests that the main target of the attacks is the complex that includes the ports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp, where the computer systems were severely affected by the attack.
In Belgium, the local press reported that the SEA-Tank terminal, which operates in Antwerp, was seriously affected.
Meanwhile, in Germany, two companies in the oil segment announced that they were victims of the cyber extortion attack.
Those two companies pointed out that the computer systems that control their infrastructure had been under attack since January 29.
This attack occurs after oil reached its highest value in seven years, and in the midst of tensions in Europe with Russia, its main supplier of natural gas.
A US firm specialized in cyber security, PaloAlto, explained that the attack used a tool called BlackCat to invade and control the computer systems of oil terminals.
BlackCat emerged in November 2021 for ransomware attacks and quickly became famous for its sophistication.
The PaloAlto experts also indicated that those responsible for programming BlackCat used the Russian language, but warned that this detail could be a false lead planted by hackers to divert the attention of the investigators.
Computer ransomware attacks on infrastructure in the United States were attributed by the authorities to groups operating from Russian territory.
Source: Ambito

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