When the port goes back to working on paper
North Carolina Ports, the authority that operates the Wilmington and Morehead City terminals, confirmed that its IT systems were accessed by an external actor and that, as a response measure, systems were shut down and operations shifted to manual processing, according to reporting by The Record. The Coast Guard and state authorities are monitoring the investigation, and the incident was publicly described as contained, with recovery still underway.
That is as far as public knowledge goes. There is no disclosure about which system was the point of entry, whether data was exfiltrated, or whether a ransom was demanded. And, honestly, that detail matters less than it seems to anyone reading from the outside. What stands out is something else: while the systems were unavailable, container flow, truck scheduling, and documentation were handled on paper, with lines and delays for carriers and importers that were never the target of any attack.
And here is the question that makes this worth reading: if a critical supplier of your company spent two weeks operating on paper, how long would it take for that to show up in your bottom line?
What an incident in one link does to the entire chain
Companies in trade, retail, distribution, construction, agribusiness, and manufacturing procurement live on logistical predictability. When one link in the chain loses its systems, the effect does not stay contained there. It shows up as delays in cargo release, demurrage (the fee charged when a container is held beyond the free time), stockouts at the far end, and delivery promises that have to be renegotiated with customers. None of this requires your company to have been breached.
This is the point that usually reframes the conversation inside the executive committee. The relevant question stops being "were we hacked?" and becomes "how long does our operation survive without systems, and how long does it survive without the systems of those it depends on?". These are two different questions, and the second almost never has a clear owner on the org chart.
It is also worth clearing up a common misconception. Going back to manual processing is not a sign of being unprepared; it is often the right decision: shutting down systems to contain the spread is standard incident response procedure. The problem is not paper itself. The problem is when paper has not been rehearsed, no one knows which form to use, and the operation improvises under pressure. Well-executed business continuity turns manual mode into a known plan B, not into a crisis.
For internal IT leaders in enterprise environments, there is an additional message. The time between the breach and its detection is the factor that most influences the size of the loss. According to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach report, breaches contained more quickly cost significantly less than those that stay active for months. Fast detection is, in financial terms, a bigger lever than many people assume.
What can be done, in practice
The good news is that continuity is a well-mapped discipline, and most of the gain comes from concrete, achievable measures, not from exotic investments.
Start with immutable backup (copies that cannot be altered or deleted during a defined period, not even by someone with administrator credentials) combined with a disaster recovery plan with stated RTO and RPO. RTO (Recovery Time Objective) is how long the company accepts being down; RPO (Recovery Point Objective) is how much data it accepts losing. Without those two numbers written down, no one knows whether the current backup is good enough. And a backup only counts as a backup after a successful restore test.
Next, shorten the detection window. EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) watches behavior on workstations and servers and makes it possible to isolate a compromised machine within minutes. Combined with 24/7 monitoring, it covers exactly the late nights and long holiday weekends when incidents tend to start. On the prevention side, MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) and patch management on a defined cycle close the most exploited points of entry: stolen credentials and known vulnerabilities left unpatched.
Finally, the exercise that pays off the most and costs the least: list your critical suppliers and mark which of them, if they went without systems for seven days, would stop your operation. For those, ask for evidence of tested backups, an incident response plan, and a crisis communication channel. This is third-party risk governance, and it aligns well with both GDPR and LGPD, which address shared responsibility in data processing.
How long does your operation survive without systems?
That is the question a partner or C-level executive should bring to the next management meeting, and it has a measurable answer. Pick the three processes that generate revenue or prevent fines (billing, shipping, and customer service, for example) and define for each one how much downtime the company tolerates before the loss becomes irreversible. Those numbers become the target of the continuity plan.
In practice, an operation with structured continuity gets back to normal in hours, not in weeks. The path is well known: immutable backup with restores tested on a schedule, EDR and 24/7 monitoring to reduce detection time, MFA and patch management to shrink the exposed surface, periodic team training to recognize phishing, and a manual-mode runbook the operation has already rehearsed at least once. Each of these items can be implemented incrementally, and each one reduces risk immediately, without waiting for the next budget cycle.
Cases like the North Carolina ports incident tend to make headlines for the wrong reasons, but the useful takeaway is an optimistic one: operations kept running, even if on paper, because there was an alternative path. Companies that plan that path before they need it don't just weather incidents better, they gain the confidence to grow, take on larger vendors, and commit to more ambitious service level agreements. Preparedness, here, is a competitive advantage.
Frequently asked questions
What does immutable backup mean?
An immutable backup is a copy of data that cannot be modified or deleted during a defined retention period, even by accounts with administrative privileges. This protects the copies from being encrypted or erased during a ransomware attack. It is considered one of the most effective controls for ensuring that restoration is possible after an incident.
What is the difference between RTO and RPO?
RTO (Recovery Time Objective) defines how long the organization can tolerate having a system unavailable before the damage becomes critical. RPO (Recovery Point Objective) defines how much data the organization is willing to lose, measured in time since the last valid backup. Defining both numbers for each business process is what makes it possible to properly size the recovery solution.
How do you assess the cyber risk of a critical vendor?
The starting point is mapping out which vendors would halt your own operations if they went without systems for several days. For those, request evidence of backups with tested restoration, a documented incident response plan, use of multi-factor authentication, and a defined communication channel for crisis situations. Recording this information in the contract turns expectation into a verifiable obligation.
References
- The Record , Cyberattack forces North Carolina Ports to manual operations
- IBM , Cost of a Data Breach Report
- CISA , Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience
Want to know how many hours it would take for your operations to get back to normal? Talk to our specialists in a Strategic IT Assessment, No Strings Attached.