Cyber security

Children’s charity The Smith Family is the latest victim of cyber hackers

- November 24, 2022 < 1 MIN READ

The Smith Family, which helps disadvantaged kids succeed through education, is the latest target of cyber hackers in the wake of attacks on Optus, MediBank and other Australian corporates. The national charity believes the primary motive of the attack was an attempt to steal funds, but the hackers were unsuccessful. However, the personal information of… Read more »

Cyber security

Australia’s talking tough on a new cyber taskforce to ‘hack the hackers’, but that also puts a target on our national back

- November 17, 2022 3 MIN READ

The Australian government is launching an offensive against cybercriminals, following a data breach that has exposed millions of people’s personal information. On November 12, Minister for Cyber Security Clare O’Neil announced a taskforce to “hack the hackers” behind the recent Medibank data breach. The taskforce will be a first-of-its-kind permanent, joint collaboration between Australian Federal… Read more »

Cyber security

It looks like corporate Australia’s key response to a raft of damaging data hacks is to hire more PR spinners

- November 2, 2022 3 MIN READ

Businesses are girding corporate communications teams with cyber security specialists as executives watch the cyber security disasters at Optus and Medibank play out in front of their eyes – and consider how they would manage the public fallout from a similar incident. The impact of the recent spate of breaches is evident at the ANZ… Read more »

Cyber security

Experts explain how the current rash of company hacks is part of a growing criminal business model for stolen data

- October 27, 2022 3 MIN READ

New details have emerged on the severity of the Medibank hack, which has now affected all users. Optus, Medibank, Woolworths, and, last Friday, electricity provider Energy Australia are all now among the household names that have fallen victim to a data breach. If it seems like barely a week goes by without news of another… Read more »

MediBank
Cyber security

‘DISTRESSING DEVELOPMENT’: The Medibank data breach is much worse than first thought

- October 25, 2022 3 MIN READ

Medibank has reported a “distressing development” regarding its unfolding cyber incident, as “a series of additional files” received from a criminal party have been found to include detailed Medibank customer data. The health insurance provider first reported “unusual activity” on its network on 13 October – and it was initially believed no customer data had been removed… Read more »

Cyber security

The Optus hacker says they deleted the stolen data, but here’s what experts want you to know

- September 29, 2022 4 MIN READ

Shortly after Australian telecommunications company Optus announced the identity data of millions of customers had been stolen, a person claiming to be the hacker announced they would delete the data for US$1 million. When Optus didn’t pay, the purported hacker published 10,000 stolen records and threatened to release ten thousand more every day until the… Read more »

Robin Hood,
Cryptocurrency

A hacker stole a record in $831 million in cryptocurrency – then started giving it back

- August 12, 2021 3 MIN READ

A hacker pulled off one of the biggest cryptocurrency heists in history by transferring $831 million worth of cryptocurrency off the Poly Network platform, only to start giving the assets back the next day. Poly Network announced the attack on Tuesday night, saying it had been attacked on the Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, and Polygon… Read more »

China, hacker
Cyber security

Australia joins US, UK and EU in saying China was behind the global Microsoft email hack

- July 20, 2021 2 MIN READ

The Australian government has accused China’s Ministry of State Security being behind a global hack of Microsoft’s Exchange email system earlier this year. The announcement, released by Foreign Affairs Minister Senator Marise Payne late on Monday night, alongside Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews and Defence Minister Peter Dutton, coincidences with similar findings announced by leading… Read more »

Topics

A cyber attack downed the NSW Education Dept website just as the government ordered schools to switch to online teaching

- July 9, 2021 2 MIN READ

The NSW Department of Education was hit by an apparent cyber attack on Wednesday. In a notice published on Thursday, the department said it took precautionary measures, shutting down many of its systems including the online portal teachers were using in preparation for the new school term. “The timing of this creates considerable challenges for… Read more »

cyber hacking
Cyber security

The top 5 most dangerous criminal organisations online right now

- July 8, 2021 4 MIN READ

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog! These words from Peter Steiner’s famous cartoon could easily be applied to the recent ransomware attack on Florida-based software supplier Kaseya. Kaseya provides software services to thousands of clients around the world. It’s estimated between 800 and 1,500 medium to small businesses may be impacted by the… Read more »

Cyber security

A suspected Russian hack on a US software company has caused a mass ransomware disaster

- July 6, 2021 3 MIN READ

A supply chain attack on Kaseya VSA has caused a mass ransomware event. The attack began with a zero-day vulnerability on Kaseya VSA, a remote monitoring and management tool, which spread to managed service providers (MSPs) and some of their customers. Kaseya, a US-based software company, issued its first warning about the incident on Friday… Read more »

Atlassian
Cyber security

Researchers found a cybersecurity flaw in Atlassian software that left it vulnerable to account takeovers

- June 29, 2021 2 MIN READ

Atlassian products were vulnerable to a hack that could have seen attackers gain access to user accounts, cybersecurity analysts found. Researchers from security firm Check Point discovered a set of flaws which, if exploited, would have enabled bad actors to take over the accounts of Atlassian products like Jira and Bitbucket. The researchers found the training.atlassian.com subdomain… Read more »

cybersecurity
Cyber security

Security flaws in Microsoft’s Exchange software reveals key issues in Australia’s cybersecurity approach

- March 15, 2021 3 MIN READ

On March 2, 2021, Microsoft published information about four critical vulnerabilities in its widely used Exchange email server software that are being actively exploited. It also released security updates for all versions of Exchange back to 2010. Microsoft has told cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs it was notified of the vulnerabilities in “early January”. The Australian… Read more »

Topics

Hackers are targeting Australia: Scott Morrison flags ‘state-based’ attacks – and it all points to China

- June 19, 2020 2 MIN READ

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australian organisations are currently being targeted by “a sophisticated state-based cyber actor” in a media conference that appears to escalate the ongoing war of words with China. “This activity is targeting Australian organisations across a range of sectors, including all levels of government, industry, political organisations, education, health, essential service providers… Read more »