Japan-based shipping company Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, (“K” Line) issued a brief statement on Friday July 2nd in which it confirmed that its computer systems had been breached through an unauthorized access to overseas subsidiary systems. K Line, which has a fleet of more than 400 ships, had only recently recovered from a previous cyberattack that used a similar route into the company’s systems.
The company said that it offered “sincerest apologies for any complications and concerns that this may bring to our potentially impacted customers and stakeholders”.
The company said that an investigation was ongoing and that it had found no indication that the unauthorized access was continuing.
After an attack on March 18th this year K Line suffered system disruptions in some of its enterprise systems. The company said it suspected that the breach was via a malware infection introduced through its overseas affiliate. Although K Line believed that there was no loss of data and was able to state that the operations of their global fleet had not been impacted, the company temporarily shut down its enterprise systems and its external connections.
It took until April 21st before the company could report that the recovery had been completed.