UPDATE 3-Aluminium producer Hydro hit by cyber attack

Norsk Hydro, one of the world's largest producers of aluminium, was suffering a cyber attack on Tuesday that affected its production facilities, sending its shares lower. The attack, which began on Monday evening and escalated overnight, was affecting the company's IT systems for most of its activities. The firm's giant aluminium smelters in countries including Norway, Qatar and Brazil were still producing but operating manually.

"Hydro is working to contain and neutralize the attack, but does not yet know the full extent of the situation," the company said in a statement. The event was a rare case of an attack on industrial operations in Norway.

The company makes products across the aluminium value chain, from the refinement of alumina raw material via metal ingots to bespoke components used in cars and the construction industry. The Norwegian state agency in charge of cyber security said Hydro contacted them early on Tuesday and that it was assisting the company.

"We are ... sharing this information with other sectors in Norway and with our international partners," said a spokeswoman for the Norwegian National Security Authority (NSM). She declined to comment on the nature of the attack. Norsk Hydro's main website page was unavailable on Tuesday, but some of the webpages belonging to subsidiaries could still be accessed.

Hydro's shares fell 3.4 percent in early trade before a partial recovery to trade down 0.8 percent by 0937 GMT. It was still lagging the Oslo benchmark index, which was up 0.7 percent. Hydro, which has 36,000 employees in 40 countries, recorded sales of 159.4 billion crowns ($18.7 billion) last year, with a net profit of 4.3 billion crowns. (Additional reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis in Oslo, Jack Stubbs and Barbara Lewis in London)