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A cyberattack hit North Carolina's port authority systems on August 4, forcing gates at all three of the state's port facilities onto manual processing. The Port of Wilmington, the Port of Morehead City and the Charlotte Inland Port were all affected, and the US Coast Guard said it is monitoring the response alongside state investigators.
The ports authority activated its cybersecurity contingency plan and began recovery on the morning of August 5, according to BleepingComputer. A systems-wide outage had forced gates at all three facilities to open late that day. Normal gate schedules resumed by August 6, though officials say delays should still be expected while IT teams finish restoring services.
In a notice posted to its website, the ports authority said: "As our IT team continues assessing affected systems and restoring services, delays can be expected. We appreciate your patience."
The authority has not attributed the attack to a specific group and has not said whether any data was stolen. Wilmington, the largest of the three facilities, has nine berths and handles about 5,000 container gate moves a week, serving as a hub for agricultural exports, retail goods and raw materials along the southeastern coast. Wilmington and Morehead City together move roughly 4.4 million short tons of bulk and breakbulk cargo a year.
The breach follows a string of attacks on US water and wastewater utilities this summer, which investigators have linked to actors with suspected ties to Iran. No public evidence connects the port intrusion to that campaign, and North Carolina officials have offered no attribution of their own.
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