Major sea ports around Australia have been shut down by operator DP World following what has been called a “cybersecurity incident”, and are expected to be heavily restricted for days to come.
The container terminal operator made the decision late on Friday night, with access to ports heavily restricted on Saturday at Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Fremantle.
The restrictions are expected to cause chaos across Australia, with imports and exports to be heavily delayed as a result.
Australian police were on Sunday examining a network safety episode that constrained ports administrator DP World Australia to suspend tasks at ports in a few states from Friday.
“We’ve started an examination concerning the occurrence and we’re not remarking further as it’s a continuous examination,” said a representative for the Australian Government Police.
DP World Australia, a piece of Dubai’s state-possessed ports goliath DP World, suspended tasks at its holder terminals in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Western Australia’s Fremantle in the wake of distinguishing the break on Friday.
In a statement on Sunday, DP World Australia said it was “testing key systems crucial for the resumption of normal operations and regular freight movement”.
It was also examining “the nature of data access and data theft”, it said.
A company spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on when normal operations would resume.
The ports operator said earlier it was “working around the clock” to restore normal operations.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said on Saturday that the government was coordinating a response to the “cyber incident”.
According to DP World, in the Asia-Pacific region it employs more than 7,000 people and has ports and terminals in 18 locations.
