Security News

Australian govt raises alarm over Conti ransomware attacks
2021-12-10 14:12

The Australian Cyber Security Centre says Conti ransomware attacks have targeted multiple Australian organizations from various industry verticals since November. "The ACSC is aware of multiple instances of Australian organisations that have been impacted by Conti ransomware in November and December 2021.".

Data breach impacts 80,000 South Australian govt employees
2021-12-10 10:17

The South Australian government has disclosed that the sensitive personal information belonging to tens of thousands of its employees was compromised following a ransomware attack that hit the system of an external payroll software provider last month. The breached company behind this data breach is Frontier Software, which suffered from a ransomware attack on November 13, 2021.

Ransomwared payroll provider leaks data on 38,000 Australian government workers
2021-12-10 05:58

Personal information describing names, addresses, bank account details, and taxation IDs of 38,000 Australian government employees has been leaked to the dark web after a ransomware attack. Frontier had previously advised that the attack had been deflected and customer data was safe.

Australian govt warns of escalating LockBit ransomware attacks
2021-08-08 14:00

The Australian Cyber Security Centre warns of an increase of LockBit 2.0 ransomware attacks against Australian organizations starting July 2021. "ACSC has observed an increase in reporting of LockBit 2.0 ransomware incidents in Australia," Australia's cybersecurity agency said in a security alert issued on Thursday.

US offers Julian Assange time in Australian prison instead of American supermax if he loses London extradition fight
2021-07-08 19:45

Julian Assange will remain in a British prison for now after the US government won permission to appeal against a January court ruling that freed him from extradition to America. News of the appeal came as the US Department of Justice offered Assange a deal that would keep him out of the notoriously cruel US supermax prisons, according to The Times.

Australian cops, FBI created backdoored chat app, told crims it was secure – then snooped on 9,000 users' plots
2021-06-08 01:53

The Australian Federal Police has revealed it was able to decrypt messages sent on a supposedly secure messaging app that was seeded into the criminal underworld and promoted as providing snoop-proof comms. Europol and the FBI will detail their use of the app in the coming hours.

Australian Federal Police hiring digital evidence retrieval specialists: Being a very good boy and paws required
2021-05-19 07:58

Australia's Federal Police is getting more help from some very good boys with four paws, wagging tails, and the ability to sniff out tech equipment with their highly sensitive noses. The dogs can sniff out things like USB sticks or SIM cards, a task difficult for humans seeing as the devices are small and easily hidden.

Watchdog thinks Google tricked Australians into giving up data, sues. Judge semi-agrees
2021-04-16 11:30

Australian federal court sent a message to Big Tech about its willingness to act on privacy violations when it ruled today that Google had "Partially" misled consumers about collecting mobile phone personal location data. For Google to not collect a device's location data, the user needed to let their wishes be known in both the "Location History" and the "Web & App Activity" setting segments.

Watchdog thinks Google tricked Australians into giving up data, sues. Judge semi-agrees
2021-04-16 11:30

Australian federal court sent a message to Big Tech about its willingness to act on privacy violations when it ruled today that Google had "Partially" misled consumers about collecting mobile phone personal location data. For Google to not collect a device's location data, the user needed to let their wishes be known in both the "Location History" and the "Web & App Activity" setting segments.

Google Broke Australian Law Over Location Data Collection: Court
2021-04-16 08:28

Google violated Australian law by misleading users of Android mobile devices about the use of their location data, a court ruled Friday in a landmark decision against the global digital giant. The federal court found that in 2017 and 2018 Google misled some users of phones and tablets featuring its Android operating system by collecting their personally identifiable location information even when they had opted out of sharing "Location History" data.