Press Room

Neolink Announcement – DP World Cyber Attack, Ports Slowly Begin to Reopen – 13.11.23

Dear Valued Clients,

Good Morning and Hope you all had good weekends.

As most of you may have seen in the mainstream news over the weekend, DP World Australia detected a Cyber Attack last Friday.

For those of you that may not be aware, DP World are one of key terminal operators across Australia’s ports controlling approximately 50% of the container volume that comes in and out of Australia. As such, DP World has since engaged a number of cyber security experts and government bodies/authorities to help them address the incident. The main action that they took on Friday way to shut down landside access to their terminals and thus cancelling pick up slots from transport providers, effectively not allowing customers to collect their cargo.

However, this morning we have been made aware by the Freight & Trade Alliance (FTA) & Container Transport Alliance Australia (CTAA) our industry bodies that some services have started to slowly resume in Brisbane and Melbourne, releasing some slots for container bookings. In addition, some of our Transport Managers have slowly started providing us with information that slots are also now being slowly released for Sydney Import collections only.

Our next steps as your Supply Chain Partner in the coming day/s and week/s ahead:

1. Working on a customer-by-customer basis who have been directly impacted with cargo held at the terminals and experiencing delivery delays.
2. Communicating proactively with customers that have cargo arriving at DP World Terminals in the coming day/weeks ahead.
3. Proactively reaching out to customers that have shipments ready and due to depart origin this week to discuss risk mitigation strategies for future delays (i.e. potential air freight options for part of full orders)

As you will all be aware from our last announcement, DP World are still going through the negotiations of a new collective bargaining agreement with the CFMEU, and we have already seen multiple vessels omit ports and offload cargo in other cities (as is their rights as per their bill of lading/terms and conditions) if the terminals cannot guarantee certain minimum turn around times for their vessels.

At this point, it is difficult to understand the degree to which this incident over the past few days is going to have on the port efficiencies as we head into Christmas or what action the shipping lines will be taking in the weeks ahead, but our belief is it won’t be a positive one and there is going to be disruption as we head into December.

You will be hearing proactively from our team in the coming day/weeks ahead and ensuring you are well equipped with all the information possible to make the best decisions for your supply chain as we head into the festive season.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to your Neolink representative.

Best regards,

Neolink Marketing Team