Australia’s securities regulator, ASIC says it has suffered a cyber security breach on a server it used to transfer files including credit licence applications where some information may have been viewed.
January 25, 2021 | AtoZ Markets – The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) said on Monday, January 25, there was a cyber security breach at a server it used to transfer files including credit license applications where some information may have been viewed.
ASIC server hit by cyber security breach
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said it became aware of the incident on January 15, although it does not appear the credit license forms or attachments were downloaded.
“While the investigation is ongoing, it appears that there is some risk that some limited information may have been viewed by the threat actor,” ASIC said in a statement on Monday.
The server has been disabled and no other tech infrastructure has been breached, the regulator added.
The incident occurred with the file sharing software provided by California-based Accellion. The same software was also used by New Zealand’s central bank, which faced a cyber attack earlier this month.
Hackers hunt for state secrets
According to Wispo’s 2020 cybersecurity analyst report, 86% of all hacker attacks in 2020 were directed against states and only 14% of attacks were against private companies. About 70% of the companies surveyed admitted that the number of hacker attacks on corporate servers was recorded at the time of transferring employees to remote work.
An analytical report from Wispo mentions that some hacker groups are directly linked to Russia. Most often, Russian citizens are accused of espionage and money laundering.
For example, the American edition of The Washington Post accused the hacker group that hacked the mail of the US Treasury Department of cooperating with the Russian authorities. Journalists refer to unnamed sources, the reliability of which is difficult to verify.
The Guardian believes that people from Moscow and Ukraine were behind the Bitcoin advertising scam through Australian celebrities. Attackers illegally used images of Dick Smith (a major Australian businessman), Andrew Forrest (an Australian businessman), and other celebrities. According to preliminary information, tens of thousands of Australians have become victims of the bitcoin scheme.
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