Operations Halted at NC Ports
A cyberattack halted gate operations at all three of North Carolina’s port facilities this past week and the Coast Guard is investigating the incident.
The breach, which occurred Tuesday, August 4, affected the Port of Wilmington, the Port of Morehead City and the Charlotte Inland Port, forcing the North Carolina Port Authority to delay gate openings and shifting to manual processing while it worked to contain the intrusion.
The port’s IT team activated the agency’s cybersecurity contingency plan upon discovering the attack, as well as reaching out to state authorities for further support, said an official at the Ports Authority.
The Port of Wilmington, the largest of the three, handles an average of 5,000 container gate moves per week and, together with Morehead City, processes 4.4 million short tons of cargo annually. The attack, detected on August 4, 2026, resulted in a systems-wide IT outage that forced all three facilities to revert to manual gate processing. This manual fallback allowed the IT team to focus on system recovery while maintaining a minimum level of operational continuity.
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OT IT