Global parts supplier TVH is recovering from the 19 March cyber attack which took down all its online operations and impacted its phone and email services.

Internal communication and employee experience manager Isabelle van de Voorde tells Forkliftaction News that TVH has “taken big steps forward in recovering our systems” and while all services are not yet restored, the company is scaling up.

“At first, this might temporarily hinder our service levels, but we continue to work hard on the recovery to be fully operational again,” she says.

The cyber attack, which TVH confirms was a case of ransomware, virtually grounded the leading parts supplier, impacting its ability to issue offers, process orders and ship them in a timely manner. 

“The impact was very high in all regions, but in some affiliates, we could help out customers with manual ordering and picking,” van de Voorde says.

Some customers have expressed concern after learning that TVH’s data was breached in the attack. According to van de Voorde, TVH’s investigation, undertaken together with third-party cyber experts, showed that cyber criminals had access to data. “This investigation is still ongoing. So far, we still have not found any indication that data has been published,” she notes. 

“We are very serious about the confidentiality of our employees’ and our business partners’ data and we will update you when we have further insight,” the company states in a LinkedIn post.

TVH has thanked its customers for their support and understanding during this challenging period. “Over the last few weeks, we have received a lot of support messages from our business partners, for which we are very thankful. Being able to start servicing customers again is giving us a new energy boost,” the company says.

“We are confident that we will come back stronger than ever.”

Customers are advised that if they are still having issues reaching TVH, they should be able to reach their regular contact people via mobile phone.

Meanwhile, American parts supplier TruPar.com has also been out of action since mid-March, with the website indicating “a cascading server failure due to legacy systems”.

“This chain reaction led to the temporary unavailability of our website,” a message on the site proclaims.

At the time of publication, the outage was affecting new orders, existing backorders and all returns.

Founder Sean McDonnell acknowledges that his site's outage is a direct result of TVH's perils.

"TVH has been a cornerstone in the materials handling industry, and its comprehensive inventory and prompt service have been invaluable to our business. As many industry professionals can attest, it is challenging to source parts at the rapid pace required without a dependable supplier like TVH. By partnering with them as one of our primary suppliers, we ensure our customers receive the best possible products at lightning-fast speeds, fostering loyalty and trust in our brand," he explains.

"In light of the recent issues at TVH, we temporarily shut down the TruPar.com website. Like us, we know many of our competitors rely on TVH as their primary supplier. However, we felt it was not in the best interest of our customers to continue accepting orders for products that we knew we could only provide with TVH being operational. Our decision reflects our commitment to putting our customers first and maintaining the highest level of transparency and integrity during these challenging times."

TruPar.com assures customers that none of their systems was compromised and “all customer data remains safe and secure”.

Aspen, Colorado-based TruPar.com, founded in 2012, claims to carry more than 1.7 million parts for 475 industrial equipment manufacturers.