Port of LA terminal closed by European ransomware attack

A container terminal at the Port of Los Angeles remains shuttered for a second day after a cyberattack infected computers in Europe.

Officials from Danish company A.P. Moller-Maersk shut down operations at their terminal Tuesday and it remained out of commission Wednesday.

“The issue remains contained and we continue to work towards a technical recovery,” Maersk said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon. “The aggregate impact on our business is being assessed.” 

The port's seven other terminals are operating normally.

Port of L.A. spokesperson Phillip Sanfield says the ransomware attack had little impact here, in part because no ships were scheduled to come into the APMT terminal on either day.

"It's not unusual for a terminal to have one or two days, particularly mid-week, to not have ships at their terminal," Sanfield tells KPCC.

But trucks filled with cargo still aren't able to come into or out of the APMY terminal.

“It was really very, very minimal impact on the port – if any," he said.

Sanfield points out the infected software was only used by Maersk and that the port has robust cybersecurity defenses to protect its own systems.

Earlier this week, a new strain of ransomware hit several European companies including pharmaceutical giant Merck. The attack eventually spread to the United States.

These types of attacks have become increasingly common over the past year as hackers can easily get their hands on the malicious code, copy it – and demand payment, according to Clifford Neuman, Director of USC's Center for Computer Systems Security. He says the hackers appear to have infected Maersk’s software through a routine update.

“This highlights some of the problems associated with automatically accepting updates, although that is something we security professionals tell people they should be doing,” Neuman said.

In general, Neuman says people should trust updates from big companies like Microsoft and Apple but they should be wary of updates from smaller software companies that may not have as strong cyber defenses.