What happened
In November 2023 DP World Australia — which handles a large share of the country’s container freight — detected a cyberattack and disconnected its Australian operations from the internet, halting landside freight movement at its ports until operations resumed on 13 November. The company later confirmed that data containing personal information of current and former employees had been accessed and taken, and said no ransomware was involved [dpw-company], [dpw-itnews].
Timeline
- 2023-11-10 — DP World detected the incident and disconnected its Australian operations from the internet, halting landside freight movement at affected ports [dpw-company], [dpw-itnews].
- 2023-11-13 — Port operations resumed [dpw-company].
- 2023-11-28 — DP World confirmed employee personal data had been stolen and said it was working with government agencies, naming the National Cyber Security Coordinator, ACSC, AFP, Department of Home Affairs and the OAIC [dpw-company].
Current status
Disclosed. No ongoing regulator investigation has been sourced. DP World did not publish a count of affected individuals, so no figure is asserted here. Data types are as confirmed by the company.
Why it matters
A breach with both critical-infrastructure and personal-data dimensions: it disrupted national supply chains for days and exposed the workforce’s personal information — the kind of incident the SOCI Act regime is designed to address.