Forward Air, a trucking and freight transportation logistics company said that it suffered a ransomware attack of $7.5 million. The attack has caused heavy damage to the company's Q4 financial results. The amount comes from "loss of less-than-load (LTL) trucking business" and not costs suffered that dealt with the incident. The loss mainly occurred because Forward Air had to temporarily pause electronic data operations with its customers. The ransomware incident happened last year on 15th December and was termed as a cyberattack using Hades ransomware.
The attack compelled Forward Air to shut down its IT systems offline and close down electronic operations to deal with the issue.
As per Freight waves, a trucking news site, the cyberattack had had a huge impact on the company's daily operations as the workers and employees couldn't get the required files to pass through the customs. Though the company says that everything is back to normal now, the SEC (Security and Exchange Commissions) filing and the large amount that the company had to pay tells otherwise. This is why cybersecurity experts always recommend being safe in the first place than to actually deal with a ransomware attack.
Freight Waves reports, "While the cause is not disclosed, the wording of the Forward Air note is similar to what other companies will state when they are under a cyberattack. Additionally, the failure of the website and the fact that the source at the 3PL said emails to Forward Air were bouncing often are marks of a cyberattack."
The SEC filing didn't mention Forward Air paying any ransom amount nor about any cyber insurance policy. Coveware, a company that deals in ransomware payment negotiations, published a report last week which said that the organizations are refraining to pay ransoms now as they've realized that the hacking groups don't always delete the stolen data.
Today, the companies choose to build again from scratch instead. Though the ransom payments saw a decline, the year 2020 was the highest ransomware year. As per the report from Chainalysis, 2020 observed a total ransom payment worth $350 Million, 311% more than 2019.
