Catagory:Breaches

1
500,000 car owner records found on dark web
2
Woolworths hit with largest SPAM infringement to date
3
Under attack: Lion suffers second cyberattack and the Federal Government warns of an active cyberattack on Australian organisations
4
easyJet hack: Nine million customer records stolen in “highly sophisticated” cyberattack
5
“Major systemic failure”: The Federal Court of Australia published full names of asylum seekers on the Commonwealth Courts Portal
6
You’ve got mail…and lots of it according to the latest OAIC report!
7
Toll’d You So: Cyber Security Incident Cripples Toll’s Supply Lines, Causes Customer Backlash
8
Taking its Toll: Toll Shuts Down IT Systems Citing Cyber-Security Incident
9
“Totally Clueless”: Dating app Grindr reported for breach of privacy rules
10
You Can’t Throw the (Face)Book at Them: Affected Users Unable to Pursue Damages Claim against Facebook

500,000 car owner records found on dark web

By Cameron Abbott and Keely O’Dowd

Intelligence experts KELA recently announced that almost 500,000 customer records of different car suppliers were being offered for sale on the dark web by hacking group “KelvinSecurity Team”.

According to reports, almost 400,000 UK based BMW customers’ data is being sold on the online black market. This data includes the initials and surnames of car owners, home addresses, email addresses, the names of dealerships and car-registration information. The data of Mercedes, SEAT, Honda and Hyundai car owners also form part of the compromised customer records.

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Woolworths hit with largest SPAM infringement to date

By Cameron Abbott and Keely O’Dowd

Woolworths recently paid a $1 million infringement notice and agreed to a court-enforceable undertaking with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in response to breaches of Australian Spam laws.

ACMA announced Woolworths had breached the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) (SPAM Act) more than five million times when it sent marketing emails to consumers after they had previously unsubscribed to Woolworths’ messages. ACMA’s investigation into Woolworths’ compliance with the SPAM Act revealed Woolworths’ systems, processes and practices were inadequate to comply with the Spam laws.

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Under attack: Lion suffers second cyberattack and the Federal Government warns of an active cyberattack on Australian organisations

By Cameron Abbott, Keely O’Dowd and Rebecca Gill

News reports have revealed that Lion Beer Australia has suffered a second cyberattack within a week of falling victim to a ransomware attack. While Lion continues to recover from the first cyberattack, it must now investigate, respond and recover from this second attack.

Today, Lion announced it had received reports of Lion document lists posted online in recent days. It is continuing to investigate if any data has been removed from its system. Lion has also advised relevant authorities and regulators of the first incident.

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easyJet hack: Nine million customer records stolen in “highly sophisticated” cyberattack

By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham, Michelle Aggromito and Rebecca Gill

It has been reported that hackers have accessed and stolen details of about 9 million customers of British airline easyJet. Approximately 2,208 easyJet customers have also had their credit card details accessed and stolen.

easyJet reported that it became aware of this “highly sophisticated” cyberattack in late January this year. After an investigation, the airline recently disclosed that the details accessed and stolen by the hackers included email addresses, travel information, and credit card data including CVV numbers.

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“Major systemic failure”: The Federal Court of Australia published full names of asylum seekers on the Commonwealth Courts Portal

By Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham, Michelle Aggromito and Rebecca Gill

The Federal Court of Australia has suffered a catastrophic data breach in which the names of individuals seeking protection visas in Australia have been published on the publicly available Commonwealth Courts Portal database for years.

Ordinarily, the files of such applicants are listed by pseudonyms which are a collection of numbers and letters.

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You’ve got mail…and lots of it according to the latest OAIC report!

By Cameron Abbott and Michelle Aggromito

With email being one of the most common forms of communication, it’s not surprising that inboxes these days accumulate thousands of emails that, perhaps, aren’t always electronically filed or deleted (not ours of course).

As the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has indicated in its most recent report on notifications received under the Notifiable Data Breach (NBD) scheme, email accounts are frequently being used for storage, and this raises inherent risk. Yes it’s convenient, but using email to send personal information, such as copies of passports, bank account details and credit card information, can very quickly lose its appeal. If the email account is accessed by a malicious actor through a phishing attack or a rogue employee, the end result can be exploitation of that information for criminal gain.

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Toll’d You So: Cyber Security Incident Cripples Toll’s Supply Lines, Causes Customer Backlash

By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Andersen and Max Evans

Further information surrounding the specific details and extent of the security breach suffered by transport and logistics network Toll, which we previously blogged in respect of, have been revealed by the Australian Financial Review.

The crippling ransomware attack, known now as “Mailto” or “Kazakavkovkiz” caused Toll to suspend many of its delivery and tracking systems with a Toll spokesperson indicating that the company needed to suspend up to 500 applications that supported its operations across 25 countries worldwide. In Australia, entities such as Nike, Optus, and Telstra were forced to address a multitude of customer complaints arising out of packages affected by the relevant cyber attack.

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Taking its Toll: Toll Shuts Down IT Systems Citing Cyber-Security Incident

By Cameron Abbott, Max Evans and Florence Fermanis

We have our first large scale data breach of the decade. Toll, a transport and logistics network which delivers up to 95 million items globally every year, has temporarily shut down a number of its IT systems as a precautionary measure after suffering a cyber-security breach on Friday, according to an article by the SMH.

A spokesperson has indicated that Toll has cybersecurity experts working closely with their IT team on the breach, and is taking careful internal measures so that systems can be brought back up online in a “controlled and secured manner”. Additionally, Toll has initiated business continuity plans to minimise the disturbance brought on by the breach. While any official numbers of affected customers and the exact nature and extent of the breach have not yet been released by Toll, The Register has reported that the breach has reportedly affected customers in Australia, India and the Philippines.

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“Totally Clueless”: Dating app Grindr reported for breach of privacy rules

By Cameron Abbott, Max Evans and Florence Fermanis

Dating apps, for many young people, are a fact of life. Meeting someone these days in real-life rather than through a simple swipe right appears to have become the exception, belonging more to any number of 90s teen “romcoms” than it does to real life.

According to an article by Reuters however, in recent times dating app Grindr has been the subject of a complaint by the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) in relation to a breach of privacy rules as set out in the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, implemented in 2018.

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You Can’t Throw the (Face)Book at Them: Affected Users Unable to Pursue Damages Claim against Facebook

By Cameron Abbott, Max Evans and James Gray

A US federal judge has ruled that the 29 million Facebook users affected by the September 2018 data breach may not seek damages as a remedy, but can only pursue the enforcement of better security practices at Facebook, according to a report by Reuters. Judge Alsup of the US District Court stated that Facebook’s repetitive losses of users’ privacy indicated a long-term need for supervision, which comes in addition to prior judgment which indicated that Facebook’s views about user’s privacy expectations were “so wrong”.

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