James Fisher hit by cyber attack; shares slump

Shares of James Fisher and Sons slumped on Tuesday after the marine services provider said it had been hit by a cyber security attack.

The FTSE 250 company said it took "immediate steps to respond to and manage the incident", which involved unauthorised access to its computer systems. It has appointed external specialists, including forensic cyber security experts to investigate the circumstances and scope of the incident and investigations are ongoing.

The group said it has taken all of the affected systems offline as a precautionary measure. This has restricted access to communication and financial systems.

"Following containment of the incident, we are working with our cyber security experts on a safe recovery of systems, applications and data from our disaster recovery back-up," it said. "Work is ongoing to complete the recovery as quickly as possible and to minimise any impact on our businesses.

"As a responsible global business we have notified regulators and law enforcement agencies in the UK and, where required, are in the process of notifying in other jurisdictions."

At 1350 GMT, the shares were down 5.1% at 1,908p.