By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham and Jacqueline Patishman
On 7 May, the American Colonial Pipeline Company (Colonial Pipeline) network, which operates the largest fuel pipeline in the US, was shut-down by a cyber-attack for several days causing fuel shortages, the highest fuel prices in years and the declaration of a state of emergency in four US states.
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By Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham and Jacqueline Patishman
In mid-May, the Russian government (quietly) published a report revealing that foreign hackers had successfully compromised the Russian Government’s cyber systems. The report suggests that sophisticated hackers were pursuing the interests of a foreign state or that they were backed by a particular state but makes no statement as to who may have been behind it.
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By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham and Max Evans
Channel Nine has suffered the largest cyber attack on a media company in Australia’s history, according to reports from IT News, the AFR and Nine News.
The cyber attack, reported by Channel Nine as a variation of a ransomware attack, struck early Sunday morning, resulting in television and digital production systems being offline for more than 24 hours. The attack impaired Channel Nine’s ability to broadcast from its Sydney studios, forcing the media outlet to shift operations to its Melbourne studios.
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By Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham and Jacqueline Patishman
News reports have surfaced reporting that a hacker in the US gained access to the Oldsmar’s water treatment plant system in an attempt to release a corrosive chemical into the Oldsmar’s water supply.
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By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen, Michelle Aggromito and Max Evans
As a result of a recent class action, the Department of Home Affairs has been ordered by the Australian Information Commissioner, Angelene Falk, to pay compensation to asylum seekers after the Department was found to have interfered with the privacy of 9,251 detainees.
According to a media release from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) , the relevant breach stemmed from February 2014, where the Department published on its website a “Detention Report”, which had embedded within it a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing the personal information (including full names, date of birth and period of immigration detention) of 9,258 individuals who were in immigration detention at that time.
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By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen and Max Evans
The City of Port Phillip Council has accidentally published to data.gov.au personal information of an unknown number of residents who had reported graffiti, according to an article from ITNews supported by a statement released by the council.
According to the statement, during work to automate the generation of a graffiti dataset, an incorrect version was selected which led to the unapproved publication of personal information such as names, phone numbers and/or email addresses of the persons who reported graffiti to the council. As the article notes, of the approximately 764 email addresses and 859 phone numbers that were published, 53% of the email addresses belonged to businesses and 28% of the phone numbers were for landlines and 1300 numbers.
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By Cameron Abbott and Keely O’Dowd
Patients of a Finnish psychotherapy centre have become the victims of a blackmail campaign after the centre suffered a data breach. It is reported, the centre’s data was stolen during two attacks, one occurring in November 2018 and the other between the end of November 2018 and March 2019.
A cyber criminal (or criminals) has used the stolen data to contact patients demanding the payment of 200 euros in bitcoin, with this amount increasing to 500 euros if the patient refused to pay within 24 hours. If a patient refused to pay the ransom, the cyber criminal threatened to publish their personal information, including notes from therapy sessions. Around 300 records have been published on the dark web, which suggests patients are refusing to pay the ransom. The centre also received a ransom demand of 500,000 euros for the return of their data, which it has refused to pay.
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By Cameron Abbott and Rebecca Gill
The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined British Airways £20 million, the ICO’s largest fine to date, for failing to protect the personal and financial details of more than 400,000 of its customers.
In a statement published online on 16 October 2020, the ICO stated that its investigation had found that British Airways was “processing a significant amount of personal data without adequate security measures in place”. This failure is said to have breached data protection laws and, subsequently, the airline was the subject of a cyberattack in 2018, which was not detected for more than two months.
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By Cameron Abbott, Keely O’Dowd and Max Evans
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has released its report on notifications received under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme for period January to June 2020.
The OAIC reported 518 breaches were notified to it in the relevant period. The OAIC noted a 3% decrease from the 532 breaches notified in the period July 2019 to December 2019. However, there was a 16% increase on the 447 notifications received during January to June 2019.
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By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham and Keely O’Dowd
Reports have surfaced that the Twitter accounts of prominent companies, politicians and celebrities were compromised on Wednesday, 15 July 2020. Hackers were able to gain large scale access to the Twitter accounts of several prominent and influential US personalities and companies to promote a cryptocurrency scam.
It is concerning that the accounts of prominent figures were targeted and compromised. Given the level of influence and prominence several of those individuals have on social media, the hackers had the potential to cause greater havoc. On this occasion, it appears the hackers were financially motivated to perform the cyber attack by seeking “donations” via Bitcoin. The hackers sent out tweets asking people to donate Bitcoin to an address and the Twitter account holder would double the donation.
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