One of Australia’s biggest port operators, DP World Australia, has restarted its operations after a massive cyber attack last week.
The port operator will begin its operations gradually in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle, but some key exports are set to experience prolonged delays.
Several of DP World Australia’s port operations were closed on Friday after detecting the breach, leaving cargo and containers stuck on the docks.
The company had to disconnect its internet as its main network was breached by unauthorised access on Friday. As the system went offline, the operations came to a standstill. It also hampered the normal functioning of the key systems linked to its port operations.
DP World Australia resumes its operations gradually after cyber attack
On Monday, the director of the Freight and Trade Alliance, Paul Zalai, said limited operations had resumed with DP World’s docks at Brisbane and Fremantle restarting the movement of imports and exports first.
However, its docks in Sydney and Melbourne were only dealing with imports on Monday, said Zalai.
“We have heard from one of our members, who say DP World told them it’ll be another two weeks before accepting export cargo at (Sydney’s) Port Botany,” Zalai said.
“That’s going to have devastating effects for our operators,” he said.
Port operations affected badly
The cyber attack on several of the ports of DP World has affected the port operations, most of which were import and export for the upcoming holiday and Christmas season. Zalai said that as per his information, the disruptions are not huge and will not pose any significant threat to the flow of the market.
“More and more is becoming apparent by the hour…The overall position is looking a lot better than it did over the weekend, as operations are up and running,” he said.
Even if DP World recovers from the cyber attack to full operations shortly, Guardian Australia understands customers remain frustrated at the prospect of delays due to protected industrial action from dock workers in the coming days.
It is expected DP World will subcontract out work to competing stevedore companies such as Patrick to deal with the backlog from the outage and industrial action.
The federal government is helping to coordinate the stevedore’s response and the Australian Cyber Security Centre is providing technical advice.
