Shipping company Maersk has confirmed that a threat actor broke into systems belonging to a company it acquired and took data, following a weekend extortion claim from the WhiteArmor ransomware group.
WhiteArmor listed Maersk on its data leak site and said it would publish roughly 100GB of information it claims to have taken from the company's logistics and supply-chain platform. The group demanded $5 million in bitcoin and gave the company 30 days to make contact and pay. WhiteArmor argued the payment would amount to about four hours of EBITDA for Maersk's contract-logistics arm, the former LF Logistics, which it said runs fulfillment for large consumer brands.
Maersk said its investigation is ongoing but that evidence so far indicates no sensitive data has been disclosed. The company said it does not expect operational disruptions and that customers can keep booking and managing shipments as usual. It described the incident as confined to a local system and said it has found no sign of impact on other Maersk systems or on customer and partner systems connected through integrations such as APIs and EDI.
The shipping group did not say which system was affected, what kinds of data were compromised, or when the intrusion happened. It said it would notify customers as more relevant information becomes available and if it finds any need to inform impacted parties of further findings. Maersk also advised customers to treat unexpected communications claiming to relate to the matter with caution and to verify them through their usual Maersk contact.
WhiteArmor claims the data it holds was stolen from the OCF/LF Logistics platform and includes nearly 30,000 driver records, plaintext passwords, 33 SUPER_ADMIN accounts, signed delivery receipts, and 14.44 inventory rows with purchase orders and Advance Shipping Notices. The group also claims to hold 27,842 mobile device logs containing phone numbers, emails, and IMEI numbers. A.P. Moller Maersk acquired LF Logistics, the original developer of the platform, from the Li & Fung Group in 2022.
Maersk is one of the world's largest container carriers, with 700 ships representing roughly 13.5% of global fleet capacity, 60 terminals in 35 countries, and 100,000 employees across 130 countries. The Danish group reported $54 billion in revenue and $2.9 billion in net profit last year.
The disclosure recalls the 2017 NotPetya ransomware attack on Maersk, which forced the company to rebuild more than 4,000 servers and 45,000 workstations. Maersk operated without IT for ten days during that incident and incurred damages of up to $300 million.
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