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Royal Dirkzwager confirmed that it suffered a ransomware attack in March 2023, and its CEO said data had been stolen from company servers. The Play ransomware group later claimed to publish data allegedly taken from the Dutch maritime information provider. Several services were temporarily disrupted; the full contents of the alleged leak have not been independently verified in the sources cited here.
What happened to Royal Dirkzwager?
The attack began on March 6, 2023. Royal Dirkzwager confirmed the ransomware incident, which The Record linked to a theft of data from servers containing contracts and personal information. On March 21, SecurityWeek reported that the Play ransomware group had published data it claimed was stolen from the company. The reports establish that data was stolen and that Play claimed to publish it; they do not independently establish that the attackers’ entire claimed dataset was authentic or complete.
Which services were disrupted, and when were they restored?
Royal Dirkzwager took four services offline during the incident, including Ship2Report, its port-arrival platform. The real-time ship-arrival system and ROAM, its ship-traffic monitoring service, were also reported temporarily unavailable. The Maritime Executive described the recovery sequence this way:
| When | Reported service status |
|---|---|
| March 6, 2023 | The incident began, and four services were taken down. |
| By March 9 | Alternative service options were being put in place. |
| By March 13 | Ship2Report was back online. |
| The following Wednesday | All systems were reported fully restored. |
The Dutch government’s Cybersecurity Assessment Netherlands 2024 characterizes recovery as taking almost a week. Those reports describe disruption to services, not a complete shutdown of the company: The Record said Royal Dirkzwager reported that its overall operations were not affected.
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What information was stolen or allegedly exposed?
The reported categories include:
- Contracts and company information.
- Personal information.
- Employee identification numbers or IDs.
- Passport or other identity-document scans.
The Record reported that CEO Joan Blaas confirmed data had been stolen from company servers. The Dutch government’s 2024 assessment also records confidential information, including employee IDs, passports, and contracts, as leaked. SecurityWeek’s March 21 report concerned Play’s publication claim. The available reporting does not establish the complete contents or total volume of the attackers’ claimed dataset, and it does not state a ransom amount.
Why did the outage matter to maritime customers?
Royal Dirkzwager supplied information to more than 800 maritime organizations and registered more than 200,000 ship movements annually, according to The Record’s 2023 report. Its systems helped ports anticipate ship arrivals and the nautical services those vessels would need. When those information services were unavailable, some customers had to use emergency workarounds. The Dutch government’s 2024 assessment says those measures included physical supervision of drilling rigs.
The outage therefore had a practical operational consequence even though Royal Dirkzwager said its overall operations were not affected: customers temporarily had to compensate for unavailable information and monitoring services.
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Blaas told The Record that the Dutch Data Protection Authority had been notified and that the company was negotiating with the cybercriminals. In the same interview, he described the pressure on employees after earlier company difficulties: “It has had a huge impact on our employees. Over the last year, because of the company’s bankruptcy, we had to let go of people and not everyone could stay. We had to move offices and now this. It’s been a very difficult time.”
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What remains unclear about the alleged leak?
The reporting supports that data was stolen and that Play claimed to publish material, but it does not verify the complete scope or authenticity of every file the group claimed to possess. It also does not establish how many individuals or organizations were affected by any exposed records. Those limits matter when describing this as a data leak: reported data categories are known, but a comprehensive inventory of the attackers’ claimed publication is not.
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