Norsk Hydro: Update on cyber attack March 22

Hydro has allocated all available internal and external resources to make further progress in securing safe and stable operations across the company, following the extensive cyber attack earlier this week.

“We are continuing to make progress towards a resolution, but the situation remains serious and we are still dependent on extraordinary measures to run many of our operations. This is particularly challenging within our Extruded Solutions business area, where the implementation of work-around solutions is both challenging and time-consuming,” says CFO Eivind Kallevik. 

The root cause of the problems has been detected and a cure has been identified, allowing Hydro’s experts to work on reverting infected systems back to a pre-infected state. Hydro is cooperating with relevant authorities, including Norway’s National Investigation Service (Kripos) and the Norwegian National Security Authority (NSM). Hydro has reported the attack to the police.

“The malicious virus attack caused many of Hydro’s IT-systems to be shut down, not because they were infected but to contain the virus and prevent it from spreading further. Although the situation is progressing from day to day, it remains unclear how long it will take to restore stable I- operations. We need to cure the infected parts of our network, before reopening the healthy parts,” says head of information systems Jo De Vliegher.

Hydro is also working to ensure relevant supporting IT-functions are operational, such as systems for payroll, treasury and reporting, with interim work-around solutions being established when needed and possible.

There have been no reported safety incidents as a result of the cyber attack.

Update on operational status in the business areas

Energy: Production running as normal

Bauxite & Alumina: Production running as normal