Sydney

DP World Australia, a ports operator, suffered a cybersecurity incident on Friday (Nov 10) and was forced to suspend its operations at ports in many states across Australia. Sharing a post on X, Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil said on Saturday that the government was coordinating a response. Minister O'Neil added that the National Cyber Security Coordinator, appointed earlier this year in response to several major data breaches, was managing the official response to the incident.

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Speaking to the news agency Reuters on Saturday, a spokesperson from DP World Australia said that operations at impacted ports were not yet restored. The company said that it was working round the clock to restore normal operations safely.

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DP World Australia operates four container terminals in Australia in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Western Australia's Fremantle.

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According to a report by the Australian Financial Review, the company said, “To safeguard our employees, customers, and our networks, we have restricted landside access to our Australian port operations while we continue our investigation."

“This is part of a comprehensive response which includes engaging with cybersecurity experts, actively investigating the incident, and notifying the relevant authorities,” it added.

This cybersecurity breach comes just a day after Melbourne-based cryptocurrency exchange CoinSpot, which is Australia's largest, was hacked with over $2 million drained from accounts. A separate report by the Australian Financial Review said that about $2.3 million of Ether was transferred from two CoinSpot wallets on Thursday. 

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The digital assets were then moved through two bridging services, THORChain and Wan Bridge, the report added. Even though Coinspot has not been the subject of a reported hack previously, its users were targeted in a phishing campaign in 2021 when cryptocurrency prices spiked. 

(With inputs from agencies)