Finnish oil refiner Neste says it has suffered an “extensive information system failure”, which has caused major delays in product distribution.
Dubbing it a “large scale incident in multiple Neste IT systems”, Neste said in an update this morning that “the failure is being investigated.
“The situation is being investigated together with our service providers”.
The company has yet to comment on the precise details of the incident.
Production is affected but has not been knocked completely offstream, the company said earlier. It was not yet clear whether the cause is a malfunction or a cyberattack, spokeswoman Susanna Sieppi told Bloomberg earlier today.
The incident comes after Norway’s Norsk Hydro, one of the world’s largest aluminium producers, saw systems crippled by the LockerGoga ransomware, forcing it to revert to manual operations on some processes. The attack cost it an estimated $50 million.
Neste, a EUR14 billion (2018 revenues) company, is a significant oil supplier to the Baltic Sea region’s wholesale market and is a global operator in Group III base oils.
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Calls to Neste and to Finland’s National Cyber Security Centre went unanswered this morning. Computer Business Review will update this story as we get more information.
A comparative minnow in the oil refining world, Neste has oil refining capacity of approximately 15 million tonnes yearly. Its product range includes diesel fuels, gasoline, aviation and marine fuels, base oils, bitumens and solvents.
