data breach notification – Cyber Law Watch

Cyber Criminals “King of the (Data Breach) Jungle”: 61% of all Data Breaches caused by Malicious or Criminal Attacks, according to OAIC Report

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.

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.

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

Feb 05 2020

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.

Human error accounts for 34% of Notifiable Data Breaches – 3 key take outs from the latest OAIC report

Sep 05 2019

By Cameron Abbott and Karla Hodgson

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has released its Q2 statistics on notifications received under the Notifiable Data Breach (NDB) scheme. The 245 breach notifications in Q2 are on par with each other quarter since the scheme was introduced in July 2018 and while the majority of NDBs (62%) are attributed to malicious or criminal attacks, we noted with interest that a staggering 34% are due to human error – that is, mostly avoidable errors made by staff. A consistent theme of our blogs is reinforcing the message that employees are the front line of defence for organisations.

There are 3 key statistics we took away from these human error NDBs.

Uniformity of Law: NSW Government opens consultation to consider making Data Breach Reporting mandatory in respect of State Government Agencies

Aug 26 2019

By Cameron Abbott, Warwick Anderson and Max Evans

We have blogged numerous times on the notifiable data breach scheme provided for in Part IIIC of Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) including more recently in relation to its success in assisting the preparedness of the health sector to report and respond to data breaches.

Whilst the NSW Information Privacy Commissioner recommends that public sector agencies notify it and affected individuals where a data breach creates a risk of serious harm, neither NSW privacy laws nor the notifiable data breach scheme require public sector agencies in NSW to provide such notification. There are many reasons for state government agencies to mandatorily report data breaches. Informing citizens when privacy breaches occur provides an opportunity for individual protection against potentially adverse consequences, whilst mandatory data breach reporting would address the current under-reporting of data breaches in NSW, which according to the consultation may be the norm.

Sorry Sir, Our Data Breach Response Plan is Out of Stock

Aug 12 2019

By Cameron Abbott, Michelle Aggromito and Max Evans

We are living in an era of online shopping, where consumers are more willing to hand over personal information for goods and services, and are less suspicious of whom they are divulging their personal information to. As a result, online businesses are in possession of a vast amount of their customers’ personal information. The recent hack of Sneaker Platform Stock-X reminds us yet again of the importance of businesses maintaining comprehensive and up to date security processes, and in particular, the necessity of having an adequate data breach response plan in place.

Stock-X, a platform for the re-sale of sneakers and apparel, was recently hacked, exposing over six million users’ personal data, including their real name, username, password, shoe size and trading currency. According to a Report by TechCrunch, Stock-X’s initial response was to reset customer passwords, stating that it was due to system updates. A spokesperson for Stock-X later disclosed to TechCruch that Stock-X was alerted to “suspicious activity”. TechCrunch reports; however, an unnamed data breach seller had contacted it claiming more than 6.8 million records were stolen from Stock-X in May, and that the records had been put up for sale and sold on the dark web for $300.

The OAIC engages in more in-depth investigations and stronger exercise of its power

Jun 28 2019

By Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham and Jacqueline Patishman

Following two key data incidents concerning how the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) handled data, the OAIC has successfully taken court action binding the banking heavyweight to “substantially improve its privacy practices”.

As a quick summary of the incidents, the first incident involved the loss of magnetic storage tapes (which are used to print account statements). These contained historical customer data including customer statements of up to 20 million bank customers. In 2016, the CBA was unable to confirm that the two magnetic tapes were securely disposed of after the scheduled destruction by a supplier.

Emergency warning system hacked

Jan 08 2019

By Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham and Allison Wallace

A new year, and a new hacking incident – this time, it was the Early Warning Network (EWN) – a text and email service used by councils around Australia to warn locals of emergency situations.

On its Facebook page, EWN stated that a hacker was able to access its system, sending out messages via text, email and landline stating that EWN had been hacked and that the receiver’s personal data was not safe. The message also included links to support email addresses and a website.

EWN said that the hack was quickly identified and systems shut down, with no-one’s personal information compromised during the attack. The attack is believed to have originated within Australia, involving compromised login details.

While EWN said that personal information was not compromised by this incident, it serves as a timely reminder for businesses to check and test their information security processes and data breach response plans – and if one isn’t in place, to implement one. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner reported that it received 550 notifications of data breaches from the time the notifiable data breach legislation commenced on 22 February 2018 to 30 September 2018.

If you’d like to find out more about the legislation, or what your business can do to protect itself, check out this 60-second video by Cameron Abbott.

Q3 Notifiable breaches industry league results: Health first … lawyers a solid third!

Nov 08 2018

By Cameron Abbott, Keely O’Dowd and Colette Légeret

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has released its third quarterly report of notifiable data breaches. This is the second OAIC report to be released covering a full quarter.

The report revealed that OAIC received 245 notifications of data breaches, marginally up from 242 notifications in the second quarterly report.

Some interesting figures from the OAIC’s report are as follows:

18% of notifications were from health service providers, 14% were from the finance sector; 14% were from the legal, accounting and management services sector; 7% were from the private education sector, and 5% were from the personal services sector;
85% of data breaches involved individual’s contact details, 45% involved financial details, 35% involved identity details, 22% involved health details, 22% involved tax file numbers, and 7% involved other types of personal information; and
57% of data breaches were due to malicious or criminal attack, with 37% due to human error, and 6% due to system faults, with cyber incidents, namely compromised credentials or phishing being the main the cause of

Of the 245 data breaches, 58 affected only one individual – however, 7 affected more than 10,000 individuals.

These figures are a clear reminder of the need to ensure that your business is equipped to deal with data breaches. To learn more about this, take a look at this 60-second video by Cameron Abbott. With professional services ranking a solid third, we’ll take some of our own advice too!

242 data breaches reported in second quarter of notifiable data breach regime

Jul 31 2018

By Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham and Colette Légeret

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has released its second quarterly report of notifiable data breaches. This report is of particular significance as it, unlike the first “quarterly” report, covers a full quarter and therefore depicts a more accurate account of data breaches over a calendar quarter.

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