DP World Australia resumes operations at ports after cyber attack

DP World's terminal at Port Botany in Sydney. The company manages almost 40 per cent of goods flowing in and out of Australia. AFP

DP World Australia, part of Dubai's global ports operator DP World, has resumed operations at all its ports across the country on Monday morning, after a cyber attack forced the company to restrict work for three days.

The resumption of operations follows the “successful tests of key systems overnight”, DP World Australia said on Monday.

The company expects that approximately 5,000 containers will move out of its four Australian terminals on Monday.

It operates terminals in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and the port city of Fremantle in Western Australia.

“The ongoing investigation and response to protect networks and systems may cause some necessary, temporary disruptions to their services in the coming days,” it said.

“This is a part of an investigation process and resuming normal logistical operations at this scale.”

Dubai-based DP World employs more than 7,000 people in the Asia-Pacific region and has ports and terminals in 18 locations.

It manages almost 40 per cent of the goods flowing in and out of Australia.

“Although port operations have resumed, it does not mean that this incident has concluded,” national cyber security co-ordinator Air Marshal Darren Goldie said on X, the platform previously known as Twitter.

“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,” he said.

The incident follows a similar one at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world's biggest lender, which was hit by a cyber attack on Friday that caused disruption in US Treasury markets and forced traders to conduct transactions using USB sticks.

Cyber security attacks can cause reputational and financial damage to people and companies. The global average for a data breach in 2022 was $4.35 million, up from $4.24 million the previous year, according to IBM's Cost of a Data Breach report.