Australian Cyber Incident, 16 December 2022

Updated: Fire Rescue Victoria confirms cyber attack from ‘external third party’ as outage continues

Outage could last “three or four days”

Company Statement: Update on FRV outage
Source: Fire Rescue Victoria investigating security incident | iTnews

View more incidents from Telstra and the Telcommunications and Internet Service Provider sector.

Update 05 Apr 2024: Victorian firefighters suffered delayed response post-cyber attack. Victorian firefighters suffered delayed response post-cyber attack – cyberdaily.au

Update 27 May 2023: Fire Rescue Victoria’s cyber-hack response a ‘lesson in how not to communicate’ – ABC News
Not only did the potentially stolen data include identification and contact information, but also medical records, passport and driver’s license details, Medicare numbers, Centrelink numbers and healthcare identifiers.

Updated 9 May 2023: Fire Rescue Victoria is battling to fix the damage from a major cyber hack five months ago. Firefighters have told 7NEWS it is causing delays in responding to emergency calls, and it could be months before the system is fixed.

Fire Rescue Victoria has confirmed its IT outage is the result of a cyber-attack.

Yesterday, the agency announced an outage affecting its dispatch system, its phones, Internet access and e-mail.

Fire Rescue Victoria has confirmed its IT outage is the result of a cyber-attack. Acting commissioner Gavin Freeman told a press conference the systems could be offline for “three or four days”. “Our systems have been compromised … we’ve called in assistance from the wider government and the federal government.”

The agency is using radios, mobile phones, and pagers to “get the fire trucks out the door”.