Wool Trade

Wool auctions re-scheduled as cyber attack impact hits

Terry Sim, February 26, 2020

Staff at the wool industry software provider Talman are ‘firefighting’ to restore services.

WOOL auctions across Australia were today deferred to later in the week as industry software provider Talman continued its firefighting efforts to restore services after a ransomware cyber attack.

AWEX’s National Auction Selling Committee, David Cother told the industry at 2pm today that Talman advised operational access is not available to subscribers/clients of the OZDE EDI Network or ASP Services.

“As such auctions for Wednesday 26 February in all regions have been re-scheduled.”

Mr Cother issued revised sale arrangements re-scheduling catalogues for today’s wool sales in Fremantle, Sydney and Melbourne to tomorrow and Friday, but also said that the Thursday auction schedule is also “not certain” as yet.

He said selling will commence two hours after operational access to servers is granted.

“If operational access is not available by 2pm AEDT, Thursday selling will be cancelled and catalogues rescheduled.

“If selling does not occur on Thursday, revised Selling Arrangements shall be issued on Thursday at 2pm.”

Revised selling arrangements

Melbourne 35

–          Wednesday sellers will move to Friday, commencing 9am.

–          Thursday sellers remain unchanged. Auction will start no earlier than 11am and no later than 4pm (subject to operational access to servers).

Sydney 35

–          S35 will be offered as a one-day sale.

–          Wednesday sellers will move to Thursday (selling first).

–          Auction will start no earlier than 11am and no later than 4pm (subject to operational access to servers).

Fremantle 35

–          Wednesday sellers will move to Friday commencing 9.30am.

–          Thursday sellers will remain unchanged on Thursday. Auction will start no earlier than 11am AEDT and no later than 4pm AEDT (subject to operational access to servers).Chief executive officer of the Ozdocs/Talman Group, Dr Pramod Pandey, said everyone in the group is busy “firefighting” to restore services to the industry after the cyber attack.

“The reality is we are under attack, we are attacked,” he said.

“All staff members of Talman and Ozdocs have been assigned to get the service up and running and they have been working non-stop since yesterday.

“We have all the back-up systems, so there is no crisis,” he said.

Talman creating new IT infrastructure

Chief executive officer of the Ozdocs/Talman Group, Dr Pramod Pandey, this morning said everyone in the group is busy “firefighting” to restore services to the industry after the cyber attack.

“The reality is we are under attack, we are attacked,” he said.

“All staff members of Talman and Ozdocs have been assigned to get the service up and running and they have been working non-stop since yesterday.

“We have all the back-up systems, so there is no crisis,” he said.

Dr Pandey said the back-up systems were being put into a new IT infrastructure, independent of the infrastructure which was subject to the attack.

“We are creating a new infrastructure altogether with the assistance of our friends such as AWEX.

“We have pooled all the resources from industry and we are making sure that we do not go to the infected environment.”

Dr Pandey said staff worked through the night to restore the huge database. Australia’s wool auction and pre-shipment system depends on Talman software and the disruption has halted preparations for auctions scheduled for today.

Dr Pandey said the cyber attack disabled the email and other services of Talman staff, but he was personally keeping its customers informed of the restoration’s progress.

“By the close of the day, we will have a better idea how much progress has been made.

“We are in contact with AWEX and AWEX has been able to contact everybody to brief them on what exactly is happening.”

Dr Pandey said Federal Police have not been contacted, but the group’s insurer would deal with any police involvement, although he was not confident reporting would bring any result.

“A good company should have the back-up and they should be able to have an alternative infrastructure, and that we have and that is what we are working on.”

AWEX chief executive officer Mark Grave said there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes to get the systems “up and running as soon as possible”. He said AWEX’s National Auction Selling Committee would consider whether systems will be in place in time for a sale to be held today.

“They will have in place timelines to follow and they will follow that process, but I think the key to it will be that the brokers and stakeholders are kept up to date.”

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Comments

  1. Jack Cleary, February 26, 2020

    Firstly, I don’t accept such bludging parasites as these cannot be caught. One might ponder why governments let them continue. With enough pressure the governments might be forced to locate and hand over these criminals. Whilst the bushfires are going, my suggestion is that any found be issued a backpack and dropped from a helicopter into the central blaze. Let them get in touch with our reality.

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