Australian port operator back online after cyber incident

SYDNEY — DP World Australia, one of the country's largest port operators, said on Monday operations had resumed at all its facilities after a cybersecurity incident forced it to suspend operations for three days.

The breach had crippled operations at the company, which manages about 40 percent of goods that flow in and out of Australia, affecting its container terminals in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Western Australia's Fremantle.

"Operations resumed at the company's ports across Australia at 9 am today … following successful tests of key systems overnight," the company, part of Dubai's state-owned DP World, said in a statement.

DP World expects to move about 5,000 containers from the four Australian terminals through the day, although the ongoing investigation and responses to protect its networks could result in temporary disruptions over the next few days.

"This is part of an investigation process and resuming normal logistical operations at this scale," DP World said.

After spotting the breach on Friday, DP World, one of a handful of stevedore industry players in Australia, disconnected the internet, significantly impacting freight movements.

Australia has seen a rise in cyber intrusions since late last year, prompting the government in February to reform rules and set up an agency to help coordinate responses to hacks.

" (The DP World breach) does show how vulnerable we have been in this country to cyber incidents and how much better we need to work together to make sure we keep our citizens safe," Cyber Security Minister Clare O'Neil told ABC Radio.

Proposed laws

The breach comes as the government released on Monday some details of its proposed cybersecurity laws that would force companies to report all ransomware incidents, demands or payments.

DP World did not specify if it received any ransomware demands.

O'Neil said the rules would also bring telecommunication companies under "strict cyber requirements" after an outage last week at telecom company Optus cut off internet and phone connections to nearly half of Australia's population for about 12 hours.

The Australian government called emergency meetings with the company and industry representatives over the weekend to manage its response.

Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek said the government wanted to toughen Australian businesses' defenses against cyberattacks.

Cybersecurity experts have said inadequate safeguards and the stockpiling of sensitive customer information have made Australia a lucrative target for hackers, Agence France-Presse reported.

Agencies via Xinhua