NAGOYA Port, Japan’s largest port by cargo throughput, has started to resume operations after being hit by a cyber attack on Tuesday at about 0630 hrs.

The Nagoya Harbor Transportation Association said the Nagoya United Terminal System went back online at around 0700 hrs on Wednesday, July 5.

Later, the association said in a separate statement that operations at several terminals would resume after 1500 hrs on Thursday, July 6.

There had been significant congestion in and around the container terminals and the port, the Nagoya Port Authority said. 

There were six boxships waiting in the area outside the port as of 1500 hrs BST on Thursday, according to Lloyd's List Intelligence vessel tracking data. Another 12 cargo-carrying vessels were at anchor.

The system failure occurred on the morning of July 4. After being reported to the police, it was identified as a ransomware attack, the association said on Wednesday. 

In ransomware, hackers block access to systems or files and ask for payment in exchange for access.

After the system failure, the port in central Japan was unable to load and unload containers from trailers and port operators received a ransom demand allegedly from a Russia-based hacker group called LockBit, according to local media reports.

Toyota Motor, the world’s biggest carmaker, which uses the port as a hub for imports and exports, planned to suspend operations at a packaging line for export-bound components on July 7 and will resume operations based on the port’s operational status, media reports said.

The police are carrying out an investigation into the cyber attack.

A total of eight ships arrived at the port while another 11 departed between July 4 to July 5, down from 19 and 17 over the two days prior, respectively, vessel tracking data shows. 

Some 2,008 boxships called at Nagoya port during the first half of this year, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence data. Monthly arrivals average 335.