South Africa’s state-owned logistics firm Transnet said on Tuesday it was working to restore systems, after the country’s key port terminals suffered a major cyber-attack last week.
The security intrusion began on July 22 but has since continued, forcing Transnet to switch to manual systems, it said.
In a letter to its customers dated Monday, the company declared a force majeure — a clause that prevents a party from fulfilling a contract because of external and unforeseen circumstances.
It said it had “experienced an act of cyber-attack, security intrusion and sabotage, which resulted in the disruption of… normal processes and functions.”
As a result, operations have been severly disrupted in ports in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Ngqura as well as Durban’s, the busiest in sub-Saharan Africa.
Inputs from Africa news