Australia- almost 80,000 south Australian public servants’ data is stolen in cyber-attack and the state government employees are advised to change their passwords. This is a massive payroll data breach. It includes the name, tax file number, and banking details of the employees. Rob Lucas, South Australian treasurer on Friday said that records of 38,000 government employees had been stolen in a cyber-attack. However, the extent of the data breach was confirm on Tuesday.
The attack consider to be carry out against an external company call frontier software. The company provide services of payroll software to the south Australian government for the last 20 years. It affects the employees working for the government except for the employees at the Department of education.
The investigation against Cyber-attack
Though the investigation is going on it is believe that the attack involve Russian hackers that took place five weeks ago. The personal information stolen includes but is not limit to the employee’s first and last name, date of birth, tax file number, home address, and bank account details. Lucas made an apology to the employees affected saying it was a‘’ serious breach’’. He said, ‘’ it’s almost everyone, Member of Parliament, right through to the premier, also people who serve on government boards and committees. To the extent we can, we are providing the maximum amount of security we can know that this has occurred’’. He also advised the employees to take security steps. For example, changing passwords and security questions are use to identify a person. Additionally, monitoring their accounts for any kind of unusual activity.
Also, the government cannot immediately terminate the agreement with the software company Frontier Software. As the investigation continued, SouthCombe said, ‘’ we are continuing to communicate closely with our customers to share the latest information about the incident. Also, offering additional cyber security support to ensure the ongoing security of their systems’’.
Frontier Software against the Cyber-attack
He added further, ‘’ we can confirm that this is the first such cyber incident that Frontier software has ever experienced. We will learn from this experience. Furthermore, implementing all necessary cyber security measures to minimize the likelihood of an incident occurring in the future.’’
Software Frontier posted on its website on 9 December about the cyber incident. On 13 November, Cyber incident hit some of the clients from Australia. The company had begun informing clients. Also, the SA privacy Committee, Australian federal police, and office of the Australian Information Commissioner was inform about the incident.
