Norsk Hydro switches plants to manual after cyber-attack

First detected on servers in the aluminium and energy producer’s global IT system late Monday evening, the ransomware attack has been described as ‘quite severe’ but hasn’t led to any safety-related incidents.

"I'm pleased to see that we are making progress, and I'm impressed to see how colleagues worldwide are working around the clock with dedication to resolve this demanding situation and ensure safe and sound operations," said Hydro's CFO Eivind Kallevik.

The company announced today, March 20, 2019, that is has detected the root cause of the problem and is currently working to validate the plan and process to restart the company's IT systems, although it can’t put a timescale on resuming normal operations or estimate the exact operational and financial impact of the attack.

Reporting on its global operations, Norsk Hydro said that its power plants were running normally, along with bauxite and alumina facilities in Brazil. Primary metal and remelter operations are reported as running normally with a higher degree of manual operations, but disruption has been experienced with extruded solutions and rolled products.