Major Australian ports shut down following cyber incident

DP World Australia restricted access to its Australian port operations in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney on Saturday after a cyber incident was detected. DP World is Australia’s second largest port operator and manages almost 40% of the goods going in and out of the country.

The incident was first noticed on Friday evening when the port operator informed the Australian government. The National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC), Air Marshal Darren Goldie said on X on November 11 that the priority “is to assist DP World Australia to resolve the incident, so they are in a position to restore access to the ports they operate across the country.” Goldie also said that the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) is providing technical advice and assistance and the Australian Federal Police had commenced investigations into the incident.

DP World has kept its IT systems offline throughout the weekend. It had at one point informed the Federal government that “the timeframe for interruptions to continue is likely to be a number of days, rather than weeks.”

A statement issued by NCSC just after 2PM AEST said DP World Australia resumed operations following the cyber incident that impacted a number of ports around the country over the past few days. The Australian Government is continuing to work with DP World Australia to support the management of any further consequences, including any ongoing disruption to Australia’s supply chains Investigations into the incident remain ongoing and remediation work is likely to continue for some time.

While offline during the weekend, DP World had worked with competitors to move time critical shipments such as medical supplies, according to a Bloomberg report.

CSO has reached out to DP World for comment but had no response at the time of writing.