Russia’s Port Alliance group, which operates a network of sea cargo terminals, said on Thursday that foreign hackers had targeted its systems over three days in a d
istributed denial of service (DDoS) attack and an attempted hack.
It said in a statement that critical elements of its digital infrastructure had been targeted with the aim of disrupting export shipments of coal and mineral fertilizers
at its sea terminals in the Baltic, Black Sea, Far East and Arctic regions.
The attack was successfully repelled and operations remained unaffected, Port Alliance said.
Denial of service is among the web’s most basic form of attack and it works by simply overwhelming tar
geted servers with a firehose of bogus requests for data, making it impossible for legitimate web traffic to get through.
Russian authorities and state companies have regularly reported attempted DDoS and hacking attacks from abro
d since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022. Ukraine and some Western countries have in turn accused Russia of launching cyberattacks.
Port Alliance group operates cargo terminals at five Russian ports.
uch crimes can create massive disruptions to supply chains and cost companies billions, with criminals stealin
g everything from energy drinks to electronics. Cargo theft losses increased by 27% in 2024 and are predicted to rise another 22% in 2025, according to the Nat
Watch More Image Part 2 >>>
ional Insurance Crime Bureau, which estimates that cargo theft amounts to $35 billion in annual losses.
Larson and threat researcher Ole Villadsen, co-author of the report, first noticed a criminal group carrying out cyber
attacks on cargo companies in 2024, and they have since found evidence of at least three distinct groups using s
uch methods. In the last two months, the researchers have observed nearly two dozen campaigns.
“It’s kind of like a constellation of different threat groups,” Larson said, adding that the cybercrime-enabled heists can b
e lucrative and challenging to combat. “It really requires a lot of effor
t on law enforcement, on businesses, on the end user to sort of say, ‘Okay, this is where we’re seeing all these things,
and here’s how we can tackle this problem as a collective.'”
The cyber-enabled heists rely on social engineering and a knowledge of how the industry works, allowing hackers successfully pass as insiders, according to Pro
ofpoint. The criminals look to exploit supply chain technology intended to move cargo more efficiently.