Big gains at Estes in recovery from cyberattack

Webb Estes took to a public video platform this week to report that most of the key operations at the LTL carrier that bears his family name have been fixed after a cyberattack early this month.

Coming almost two weeks after a previous video and published update, in which Estes Express said its electronic data interchange systems had been restored, the latest update by Webb Estes, who is president and COO, reviewed several more systems that are online. It was published on the Estes website Wednesday and to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday.  

The precise date of the start of the Estes cyberattack is not clear, but it became known in the industry by the start of the workweek that began Oct. 2. 

Webb Estes said the company is “working tirelessly to complete the restoration of our systems and make them even safer,” suggesting that the entire task of rebuilding after the attack is not complete. However, he did not offer specifics on what systems remain down. At publication time, a media representative for Estes had not responded to a FreightWaves query.

Most importantly, Webb Estes said the company’s application programming interface connections with customers and other counterparties are back online. APIs have been defined as “a set of programming code that enables data transmission between one software product and another.” 

“Our API connections are available to integrate our shipping functionality into our customers’ business applications and websites,” Webb Estes said in the recording. 

He also said the company has restored the “image document retrieval API.” But that takes time, and Webb Estes said “we’re working hard to get all scanned images into our system so invoicing can resume soon with our APIs.” 

Since the Oct. 6 update, the company’s website also was restored, as was its phone service.

Given that Estes is not a public company, outsiders will not be able to ascertain how much of a hit the company took on its cybersecurity attack. The only analogy that could be made, given that they are both LTL carriers, would be to the fourth-quarter 2020 attack at Forward Air (NASDAQ: FWRD). 

The companies are admittedly different; Forward Air is an LTL carrier but with its activities focused on moving airfreight. But its Q4 2020 revenue of $350.3 million was followed by first-quarter 2021 revenue of $362.2 million. By the fourth quarter of 2021, revenue had climbed to $459.9 million, admittedly in the midst of a historically good freight market.

In several of his daily updates, chief Deutsche Bank transportation analyst Amit Mehrotra suggested that the third-quarter earnings calls of publicly traded LTL carriers might give some suggestion about how much Estes business was moved over to other companies. 

Webb Estes gave no hint how large the impact on its business might be as it switched to a more manual system during the cyberattack. But he heaped praise on customers that had remained. 

“We continue to see our customers choosing Estes for their shipping needs,” Webb Estes said. “We know you have choices. So we’d like to thank our many customers who’ve stuck by us through this challenge. Your trust in us has helped drive efforts toward returning online quickly, responsibly and safely. We’ve hardened our technology environment, and we’re building back stronger than ever. Again, please accept my sincere thanks for your patience and trust.”

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