Thieves broke into the University of Western Australia and stole an undisclosed number of laptops containing âfragmentedâ student data stretching back 30 years.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Dawn Freshwater said in an email to students that the laptops contained âfragmented data relating predominantly to people who applied to study at UWA between 1988 and January 2018â stored locally on the machines. âThe bulk of this data relates to Australian citizens or residents and includes tax file numbers (TFN) and student identification numbers, and in these cases while some names and contact information are spread across the laptops, they are not directly linked to the TFNs or student IDs,â she said.
International students that applied to study at UWA âbetween September 2014 and December 2018â had a wider variety of information stored on the stolen machines, included personal details, passport numbers, and Visa status and numbers.
Australian Information Security Incident Reported: June 20 2019
A West Australian school has been swept up in a âhighly sophisticatedâ cyber security attack, understood to have scooped up the banking details of parent and guardians.
Itâs understood a âsignificant amount of dataâ was taken from âinstitutions with a profile in financial servicesâ, including Nagle Catholic College in Geraldton.
This leaked information could have included information relating to bank accounts, credit cards and signatures for the payment of school fees.
Western Australiaâs firearms database has been roundly criticised by the stateâs auditor for containing significant data integrity issues that impede the regulation of guns in the community.
The Firearm Controls Audit Report [pdf], released by auditor-general Caroline Spencer on Wednesday, reveals âcontrol and functionality weaknessesâ with the stateâs licensing and registry (L&R) information system.
Australian Information Security Incident Reported: February 01 2019
A former long-serving police officer has been jailed for six months for illegally accessing the personal details of almost 100 women to determine if they were “suitable” dates.
A 28-year veteran of WA Police and was nominated as police officer of the year in 2011.
The former senior constable pleaded guilty to 180 charges of using a secure police database to access the information of 92 women he had met, or interacted with, on dating websites including Tinder and Plenty of Fish.
Australian Information Security Incident Reported: December 19 2018
WAâs biggest health insurer has admitted to a privacy breach that led to the private addresses of psychologists being published on a TripAdvisor-style healthcare website.
HBF said this week that it had notified the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and written to more than 7000 psychologists after realising it had provided some personal addresses to the online directory Whitecoat.
Australian Information Security Incident Reported: November 2 2018
A cyber security breach and extortion attempt on the WA-based Defence shipbuilder has escalated fears about attacks on national security.
Austal has confirmed “some staff email addresses and mobile phone numbers” were accessed in the hack. It also confirmed ship drawings might have been stolen. Then unknown attacker tried to on-sell âcertain materialsâ in an apparent extortion bid.
