Port of Santos confirms cyberattack, systems remain offline

The Autoridade Portuária de Santos (APS) confirmed that its systems went offline after a cyberattack. The authority told g1 that it has not yet determined the scope of the incident or whether data was accessed.

According to the APS, systems have been unavailable since the morning of Friday (6), when a power outage affected the company's servers. The outage hit the website, internal systems, and services used by customers and users of the Port of Santos.

CNN Brasil reported that the port discovered the malicious program was already present on the APS network before the Friday power outage, and that the program was activated after the electricity interruption. It is still unknown when the program entered the systems.

The APS said it activated a contingency plan to avoid data leaks. The plan provides alternative procedures for activities that depend on digital systems and may cause greater slowness in administrative processes. The authority said this delay does not affect port operations.

Internet and telephony were restored on Monday (9), while the Port of Santos website and other internal systems remained unavailable. Services are being restored gradually with the support of backups.

The Comissão Estadual de Segurança Pública nos Portos, Terminais e Vias Navegáveis (Cesportos) raised the protection level of the Port of Santos to level II after the APS operating system showed failures. Level II protection is determined when there are risks to the security of operations. In this situation, access control to the port zone and the number of cargo inspections increase. The measure can reach level III.

The port order expanding to level II protection was signed by PF delegate Edson Patrício do Nascimento, coordinator of Cesportos. He considered instabilities in the public gates systems, with possible impacts on access controls for people and vehicles.

The APS guaranteed there is no risk of suspension of port operations. Ship entries and exits and land access to the Port of Santos are maintained. The authority said no service has stopped being provided in recent days.

The Federal Police of Santos told g1 it had been informed of the occurrence but said it received no documentation about it. An investigation had not been opened by the corporation until the last update of the report.

DP World, which operates a private terminal on the left margin of the Port of Santos, reported only slowness in the integration between the portal and its systems, but said the problem caused no impacts on operations.

Sources

This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.