The global Petya virus has “significantly affected” the worldwide operations of TNT Express, a subsidiary of FedEx that’s based in the Netherlands. Both the domestic and international shipping services remain operational, but they are experiencing delays, the companies say. FedEx halted trading of its shares shortly after the announcement, but all other FedEx-owned companies are so far unaffected.
FedEx’s Dutch operations have been ‘significantly affected’ by the Petya virus
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“We cannot measure the financial impact of this service disruption at this time, but it could be material,” FedEx writes in a statement about the service disruption. The company adds that “remediation steps and contingency plans are being implemented as quickly as possible,” including using FedEx’s own Express service to help with the backlog. TNT Express was acquired by FedEx in 2016. It ships 1 million packages a day to 200 countries.
The Petya virus began spreading across Europe early yesterday morning, and it’s affected a wide range of businesses and services. Computer systems at Ukraine’s central bank, municipal metro, and the Boryspil Airport in Kiev were all damaged. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant had to switch to manual radiation monitoring. Danish shipping giant Maersk was also hit.
Originally thought to be a ransomware, similar to last month’s WannaCry attack, a new analysis shows that Petya may have been modified for more destructive purposes — meaning that affected businesses might not even have the option to pay the hackers for a way out of trouble.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
