- In short: A new hack may have swept up Tasmanian government information in a data breach affecting a national law firm
- What’s next?: The Tasmanian government says it is trying to “establish if any Tasmanian information has been impacted”
The Tasmanian government may have been caught up in another data breach, months after a separate hack compromised names, addresses and bank statements of Tasmanians.
In a statement on Friday, Tasmania’s Minister for Science and Technology Madeleine Ogilvie said investigations were underway to ascertain if any information had been compromised in the “illegal release of data held by national law firm HWL Ebsworth onto the dark web”.
In May, Nine Entertainment reported the Australian commercial law firm had been the subject of a cyber attack involving the theft of “stolen employee and client data”.
Today, Ms Ogilvie said the “federal government contacted the state government this morning about the release of data” from the hack.
“This is concerning and we are working closely with the Australian government to establish if any Tasmanian information has been impacted,” she said.
“While this may take some time considering the volume of data involved — we are taking swift action and will keep the Tasmanian community informed with further developments.”
In April, the Tasmanian government confirmed names, addresses and bank statements of Tasmanian parents and students had been released online in a data breach involving at least 16,000 documents.
The documents were released by hackers as part of a cyber attack on a third-party transfer software used by the Tasmanian Department of Education, Children and Young People.
The government confirmed invoices, bank statements, and names and addresses of people connected to the department had been accessed by an international crime group.
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