Domestic violence victims are being told to contact police if they believe they're in danger following a major data breach involving New South Wales court records. A hacker gained access to 9-thousand sensitive files and detectives still don't know who's behind the cyber-attack.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Police say the information that's been compromised is vast, but they say it could include things
00:07like apprehended violence orders, affidavits or potentially even sensitive information
00:13about children.
00:14Now, this was discovered last week when government cyber security experts noticed some unusual
00:20activity on the court's online registry.
00:24And now an account holder's profile was used by a hacker to infiltrate the system and the
00:29government says it's currently not clear whether all those files were merely opened
00:34or whether they were then shared or downloaded.
00:38The government says that the hole that the hacker managed to slip through has now been
00:42plugged, and they say that so far there's no evidence that the information has appeared
00:47on the dark web.
00:49But police have acknowledged that this, of course, will be unsettling for victims in
00:53particular whose details might have been on that court registry.
00:58And they are urging people to reach out for help if they think they're under threat.
01:04If you believe your safety is at risk, yes, certainly you need to take precautions and
01:10if necessary, involve your local police.
01:14So Nick, how will people know if they're affected?
01:17And is there any suggestion that even like addresses of domestic violence victims might
01:22be part of this?
01:27Those sorts of details very much could well be part of this breach, Joe.
01:32Police and the government say that it'll take some time for them to assess exactly what
01:37has been viewed by this hacker.
01:41Up to a week, they say.
01:44And so look, the Department of Communities and Justice, they are progressively contacting
01:48people as it becomes clear whether or not they have had their information breached.
01:55Domestic violence services say that they're expecting an influx of calls from people who
02:00are concerned.
02:01They say that this will be very triggering, particularly for victims of family violence
02:05who may be fleeing an abusive partner and they're calling for more government support.
02:12We know that survivors will be reaching out to services right now.
02:15We know that the burden will be placed on those services who absolutely will be looking
02:18at crisis management, risk assessment, case management, which is why we're calling on
02:22the New South Wales government right now to increase service funding at a baseline
02:26of 50% increase and that will be essential because we know it's the services that take
02:31on the burden of crises like this.
02:34And Joe, this breach was first discovered last week.
02:37Cybercrime detectives didn't become involved until a couple of days ago and the community
02:43wasn't informed about this breach until last night.
02:47The government says there's a reason for that.
02:49It says that if it had gone public earlier it may have alerted the hackers and potentially
02:54compromised the investigation and that's an investigation which really now is only just
02:58getting started.