FedEx’s TNT Express still reeling from Petya cyberattack last month

The impact from the latest cyberattack on TNT Express operations has turned out to be far greater than initially reported, with many offices reduced to pen-and-paper operations and critical business data seemingly permanently destroyed.

The virus first struck the company’s Ukraine operations on June 27, before infiltrating the company’s global network.

According to a 10-K filing by TNT’s parent company, FedEx, with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), disruption from the cyber-attack that shut down TNT Express operations late last month is still impeding the company’s operations. “Customers are still experiencing widespread service and invoicing delays, and manual processes are being used to facilitate a significant portion of TNT operations and customer-service functions,” FedEx said. “We cannot estimate when TNT services will be fully restored.”

FedEx information technology teams are currently working to recover critical data. However, in the days that followed the attack, it emerged that the virus, known as Petya, was a “wiper,” not ransomware. That means that the virus was designed to destroy data, rather than restore data once the ransom is paid.

“We are currently focused on restoring remaining operational systems, along with finance, back-office and secondary business systems,” FedEx said. The express company said that there was no timeframe for full restoration of impacted systems, and that it might never fully recover critical business data that was encrypted by the virus.

“We are still evaluating the financial impact of the attack, but it is likely that it will be material,” FedEx said. The Memphis-based integrator does not have insurance against such cyber-disruption. Although FedEx did not specify the costs of lost business and operational capacity, it noted a meaningful decrease in revenues and volumes at the TNT operation, as well as “incremental costs associated with the implementation of contingency plans and the remediation of affected systems.”

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