In the United States, the military and the FBI boarded an oil tanker following suspicions of a foreign cyberattack
Kyiv • UNN
The Coast Guard and the FBI inspected the VL Prosperity following suspicions of a foreign cyberattack. No casualties or operational disruptions were reported.
The U.S. Coast Guard and FBI agents boarded an oil tanker bound for Texas after detecting signs of a cyberattack on its network. U.S. authorities suspect the involvement of foreign cyber adversaries, Bloomberg reports, as cited by UNN.
Details
The operation was conducted on August 21 aboard a foreign-flagged vessel. The Coast Guard confirmed it had taken place only on September 15 in response to an inquiry from Bloomberg News.
According to vessel-tracking data, the vessel is the large VL Prosperity oil tanker, which is currently near Galveston, Texas.
The tanker’s communications may have been lost for 30 hours
At the end of August, the Iranian semi-official Mehr news agency reported that, following a cyberattack in the Strait of Gibraltar, communications with the VL Prosperity had been disrupted for approximately 30 hours.
The U.S. Coast Guard said that the vessel’s captain, crew, and shore-based personnel are cooperating with the investigation. No injuries or disruptions to the tanker’s operations were reported as a result of the incident.
U.S. authorities continue to investigate and are working with port operators and vessel owners to prevent disruptions to port operations.