The company still operating some transactions by hand

Jul 18, 2017 07:37 GMT  ·  By

FedEx was one of the companies hit the hardest by the Petya ransomware attack in June, and it turns out that it’s still struggling to recover after the hack, with some systems very likely to never recover in full.

In a statement released on Monday, FedEx reveals that TNT, the firm’s unit that was purchased in May 2016, was “significantly affected” by the ransomware, and worldwide operations are still impacted, with some transactions still being operated by hand.

The Petya attack started after the virus was bundled into a Ukrainian tax software solution, and FedEx says that this application was running on TNT’s systems, which allowed the malware to infiltrate into the entire network and encrypt the data.

While the FedEx systems were not affected, the company says that worldwide TNT operations were substantially hit.

“Customers are still experiencing widespread service and invoicing delays, and manual processes are being used to facilitate a significant portion of TNT operations and customer service functions. We cannot estimate when TNT services will be fully restored. Contingency plans that make use of both FedEx Express and TNT networks remain in place to minimize the impacts to customers,” the firm says.

FedEx shares going down

No data breach or data loss was experienced, FedEx says, adding that the company does not have cyber or other insurance in place to cover attacks like this.

This is why the company expects a major financial hit, with rivals UPS and DHL very likely to benefit from the drop, especially in Europe where TNT’s systems are said to be hit the hardest.

FedEx explains that while it’s working at full speed on recovering systems that got infected with the malware, there are computers that may never fully recover.

“We cannot yet estimate how long it will take to restore the systems that were impacted, and it is reasonably possible that TNT will be unable to fully restore all of the affected systems and recover all of the critical business data that was encrypted by the virus,” it says.

FedEx shares have already declined 1.7 percent to $215.27 on Monday, and the company is now expected to report earnings that are down 50 cents to $1 a share for this fiscal year.