Oil terminals in Europe’s biggest ports hit by a cyberattack

A cyber attack hit the oil terminals of some of the biggest European ports impacting their operations.

Some of the major oil terminals in Western Europe’s biggest ports have been targeted with a cyberattack.

Threat actors have hit multiple oil facilities in Belgium’s ports, including Antwerp, which is the second biggest port in Europe after Rotterdam.

Among the impacted port infrastructure, there is the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp oil trading hub, along with the SEA-Tank Terminal in Antwerp.

“A spokesperson for prosecutors in the northern Belgian city confirmed on Thursday they had begun an investigation earlier this week, but declined to give further details.” reported Reuters agency. “Belgian business daily De Tijd reported that terminal operator Sea-Tank had been hit by a cyber attack last Friday. The company declined to comment.

The AFP agency reported that the attackers have disrupted the unloading of barges in the affected European ports.

“There was a cyber attack at various terminals, quite some terminals are disrupted,” said Jelle Vreeman, senior broker at Riverlake in Rotterdam. “Their software is being hijacked and they can’t process barges. Basically, the operational system is down.”

The attacks were also confirmed by Europol, which is supporting the authorities in Germany, where other ports were hit by the threat actors.

“At this stage the investigation is ongoing and in a sensitive stage,” Europol spokeswoman Claire Georges said.

This week, two oil supply companies in Germany were hit by cyber-attacks that caused severe problems to petrol distribution.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, oil port terminals)